One method to determine a position of a probe(112) in a surgical site with a plurality of reference structures may include receiving a three dimensional image(300) of the surgical site generated before the probe(112) enters the surgical site and receiving a first two dimensional image(206) generated by the probe(112) from a position within the surgical site. The three dimensional image(300) is associated with a first coordinate system and the first two dimensional image(206) is associated with a second coordinate system. The method also includes acquiring registration to the plurality of reference structures based on the first two dimensional image(206) to obtain a permissible set of probe pose parameters extracting a second two dimensional image(408) based on the permissible set of probe pose parameters from the three dimensional image(300) and computing a correlation between the first two dimensional image(206) and the extracted second two dimensional image(408) to map the position of the probe represented by the second coordinate system to a position represented by the first coordinate system with respect to the three dimensional image(300).
