Realistic and dynamic simulation of needle implantation in brachytherapy

We present a realistic and dynamic simulation method of the needle implantation in brachytherapy. The needle is firstly modeled as a polygon model and then its position and orientation are dynamically and automatically located using a magnetic tracking technology. Two buffers that reserve the result of the volumetric rendering and geometric rendering are mixed in the context of image-level hybrid volume rendering. Thereafter pre-planning of virtual catheters and the interactive and vivid simulation of needle implantation in brachytherapy are carried out. The realistic enhancement ways such as depth weight, shadow and 3D cutting view are also proposed in this paper.