Illustration of vascular structures for augmented reality in liver surgery

We present methods for intraoperative visualization of vascular structures in liver surgery. The underlying concept combines conventional augmented reality approaches with illustrative rendering techniques. Our methods reduce the visual complexity of vascular structures, and accentuate spatial relations. The proposed visualization techniques are embedded in a clinical prototype application that has already been used in the operating room for preliminary evaluations. To verify the expressiveness of our illustration methods, we performed a user study with controlled lab conditions. The study revealed a clear advantage in distance assessment for the proposed illustrative approach in comparison to conventional rendering techniques.