Coordinate systems

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Introduction

One of the great issues while dealing with medical images and applications are the differences between the coordinate systems. There are three coordinate systems commonly used in medical applications: a difference can be made between the world, anatomical and the image coordinate system.

The following figure illustrates the three spaces with their corresponding axes:

The 3 different spaces and their axes

Each coordinate system serves one purpose and represents their data in different ways: The world coordinate system is typically a Cartesian coordinate system in which a model (e.g. a MRI scanner or a patient) is positioned. Every model has its own coordinate system but there is only one world coordinate system to define the position and orientation of each model.