A method for planning a path according to a surgical application incorporating a structural damage assessment technique (112) and/or a geometric expansion technique (113) for a configuration space node structure representing a discretized configuration space of an anatomical region (100). The structural damage assessment technique (112) includes a generation of structural damage assessments indicative of an assessment of potential damage to one or more critical anatomical areas of the anatomical region (100). The geometric expansion technique (113) includes an augmentation of the configuration space node structure involving one or more free-space configuration nodes geometrically neighboring the target node serving as surrogate seed nodes.
