The state of the art of visualization in mixed reality image guided surgery

This paper presents a review of the state of the art of visualization in mixed reality image guided surgery (IGS). We used the DVV (data, visualization processing, view) taxonomy to classify a large unbiased selection of publications in the field. The goal of this work was not only to give an overview of current visualization methods and techniques in IGS but more importantly to analyze the current trends and solutions used in the domain. In surveying the current landscape of mixed reality IGS systems, we identified a strong need to assess which of the many possible data sets should be visualized at particular surgical steps, to focus on novel visualization processing techniques and interface solutions, and to evaluate new systems.