Described herein is a method of determining the accurate positioning of a device within a patient anatomy. In one aspect, the method comprises generating a first model of at least one anatomical passageway from anatomical data describing the patient anatomy, determining a shape of a device positioned within branched anatomical passageways of the patient anatomy, the device including a plurality of sections, each section of the plurality of sections having a distinct physical property, computing a set of deformation forces for each section of the plurality of sections of the device, and generating a second model of the device positioned within the plurality of branched anatomical passageways by adjusting the first model based upon the determined shape of the device and the set of deformation forces for each section of the plurality of sections of the device.
