A novel noise filtered and occlusion removal: navigational accuracy in augmented reality-based constructive jaw surgery

PurposeAugmented reality-based constructive jaw surgery has been facing various limitations such as noise in real-time images, the navigational error of implants and jaw, image overlay error, and occlusion handling which have limited the implementation of augmented reality (AR) in corrective jaw surgery. This research aimed to improve the navigational accuracy, through noise and occlusion removal, during positioning of an implant in relation to the jaw bone to be cut or drilled.MethodThe proposed system consists of a weighting-based de-noising filter and depth mapping-based occlusion removal for removing any occluded object such as surgical tools, the surgeon's body parts, and blood.ResultsThe maxillary (upper jaw) and mandibular (lower jaw) jaw bone sample results show that the proposed method can achieve the image overlay error (video accuracy) of 0.23 similar to 0.35mm and processing time of 8-12 frames per second compared to 0.35 similar to 0.45mm and 6-11 frames per second by the existing best system.ConclusionThe proposed system concentrates on removing the noise from the real-time video frame and the occlusion. Thus, the acceptable range of accuracy and the processing time are provided by this study for surgeons for carrying out a smooth surgical flow.