A pre-operative stage of an image-based localization method (30) involves a generation of a scan image (20) illustrating an anatomical region (40) of a body, and a generation of virtual information (21) including a prediction of virtual poses of endoscope (51) relative to an endoscopic path (52) within scan image (20) in accordance with kinematic and optical properties of endoscope (51). An intra- operative stage of the method (30) involves a generation of an endoscopic image (22) illustrating anatomical region (40) in accordance with endoscopic path (52) and a generation of tracking information (23) includes an estimation of poses of endoscope (51) relative to endoscopic path (52) within endoscopic image (22) corresponding to the prediction of virtual poses of endoscope (51) relative to endoscopic path (52) within scan image (20).
