Patent attributes
A surgical guidance system has two cameras to provide stereo image stream of a surgical field; and a stereo viewer. The system has a 3D surface extraction module that generates a first 3D model of the surgical field from the stereo image streams; a registration module for co-registering annotating data with the first 3D model; and a stereo image enhancer for graphically overlaying at least part of the annotating data onto the stereo image stream to form an enhanced stereo image stream for display, where the enhanced stereo stream enhances a surgeon's perception of the surgical field. The registration module has an alignment refiner to adjust registration of the annotating data with the 3D model based upon matching of features within the 3D model and features within the annotating data; and in an embodiment, a deformation modeler to deform the annotating data based upon a determined tissue deformation.