A surgical system and method for facilitating ad-hoc intraoperative planning of a surgical step to be performed at a target site, the system comprising a digitization device, a navigation system, and a computing device. The digitization device intraoperatively facilitates establishment of one or more local virtual references relative to the target site. The navigation system tracks states of the digitization device. The computing device is coupled to the navigation system and comprises one or more processors and a non-transitory storage medium having stored thereon a computer-aided design (CAD) program. When executed by the one or more processors, the CAD program is configured to generate a virtual reference frame, register the one or more local virtual references within the virtual reference frame, and enable arrangement of different geometrical design objects within the virtual reference frame relative to one or more registered local virtual references to intraoperatively plan the surgical step.
