In planning an ablation procedure, a planned target volume (PTV) (70, 102) is imported, which is typically selected by a doctor but may be computer identified. An initial set of candidate ablation regions (112) that covers the PTV (40, 70, 102) is computed. Ablation probe trajectories that avoid critical structures (136) are computed to provide surgical 5 options for safe entry points and angles. An optimization component (14) determines a minimum number of ablation regions, which fully covers the PTV (40, 70, 102), and generates locations and orientations for each ablation (108). A tracking system can be given these ablation targets, enabling the surgeon to control the probe more precisely to the desired location.
