AN AUGMENTED REALITY-BASED PLATFORM FOR USERS' TRAINING AND PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT FOR NEUROSURGICAL TARGETING TASKS

Neurosurgical interventions require preoperative planning and precise navigation and manipulation of medical instruments since the workspace involves healthy brain tissues and eloquent brain structures. Computer-assisted surgery research is gaining more interest in medical disciplines such as neurosurgery. Visualization and rendering of three-dimensional medical volumes to assess patients cases have a positive impact on the medical community, yet dealing with huge three-dimensional medical volumes is a challenging task. In this work, we propose a second generation of Augmented Reality-based simulator modality platform or system when training novice users for neurosurgical targeting tasks using the best trajectory. The second generation came as an extension to cover head orientation for better user's tracking movement. The proposed modality to Augmented Reality visualization depends on the integration of new technology (Unity, Vuforia) to create Augmented Reality software for preoperative neurosurgical training based on Quick Response markers. An initial experiment to demonstrate the usability of the system to evaluate and demonstrate users learning and their performance was conducted. The current system prototype had the potential to help novice users maintain targeting task skills with objective measures of speed and accuracy.