Visualization support for the planning of hepatic needle placement

Purpose Percutaneous image-guided interventions, such as radiofrequency ablation or biopsy, are using needle-shaped instruments which have to be inserted into a target area without penetrating any vital structure. The established planning workflow is based on viewing 2D slices of a pre-interventional CT or MR scan. However, access paths not parallel to the axial plane are often necessary. For such complicated cases, the planning process is challenging and time consuming if solely based on 2D slices. To overcome these limitations while keeping the well-established workflow, we propose a visualization method that highlights less suited paths directly in the 2D visualizations with which the radiologist is familiar.