Virtual Reality in Interventional Electrophysiology

here are 2 principal components to any cardiac intervention: definition of the shape, location, and functional anatomy of a target and precisely located delivery of therapy.As tools for catheter-based electrophysiological (EP) intervention become more potent, it is important to ensure that the technologies used to visualize the target and guide their application are of comparable power.In the digital era, these visualization technologies provide us with a virtual image of the heart.Ideally, this image should be a perfectly accurate, easy to generate, fully transparent to the user, and immediately available for real-time navigation.One approach to understanding the value and appropriate uses of such tools is to assess the degree to which they meet these criteria.Articles in this issue of Circulation by Ector et al 1 and Sra et al 2 seek to address this task; they document the independent and parallel development a novel approach to anatomic visualization in EP intervention combining fluoroscopy and volume imaging of the heart.