System and method for tracking non-visible structure of a body with multi-element fiducial

A system for monitoring the position and orientation of non-visible internal structure of a body, the system comprising:

• a fiducial reference capable of being attached to the body, the fiducial reference having at least one pattern segment being perceptible in scan data of the body;
• a three-dimensional tracking marker having a fixed connection with the fiducial reference;
• a tracker having sensory equipment for obtaining image information of a region encompassing the tracking marker;
• a computing device in communication with the tracker, the computing device having software capable of recognizing the fiducial reference in the scan data and in the image information and calculating a model of the region based on the scan data, the identity of the fiducial reference, and the image information.

A system for monitoring the position and orientation of non-visible internal structure of a body, the system comprising:

• a tracker for obtaining image information of an area encompassing the body;
• a fiducial reference configured for removably attaching to the body to be observable by the tracker, the fiducial reference having at least one pattern segment;
• a controller configured to spatially relate the image information to previously obtained scan data of the internal structure of the body with the fiducial reference attached to the body;
• and
• software executable by the controller to determine a three-dimensional location and orientation of the fiducial reference in relation to the internal structure of the body by relating the image information to the scan data.

A method for relating in real time the three-dimensional position and orientation of non-visible internal structure of a body to the location and orientation of the structure in a scan of the body, the method comprising:

• removably attaching a fiducial reference to a fiducial location on the body, the fiducial reference having at least one pattern segment;
• performing a scan with the fiducial reference attached to the fiducial location to obtain scan data including the internal structure of the body;
• determining the three-dimensional location and orientation of the fiducial reference from the scan data;
• obtaining real time image information of the body;
• determining in real time the three-dimensional location and orientation of the fiducial reference from the image information;
• and
• deriving a spatial transformation matrix for expressing in real time the three-dimensional location and orientation of the fiducial reference in relation to the internal structure of the body as determined from the image information in terms of the three-dimensional location and orientation of the fiducial reference as determined from the scan data.