Surgical navigation for revision surgery includes temporality coupling a reference arc to a surgical object that was substantially permanently affixed to a bone of a patient during a preceding surgery. The reference arc includes a navigation tracker configured to communicate with a navigation system. A surgical instrument is coupled to a respective navigation tracker that is also configured to communicate with the navigation system. A known relationship between the navigation tracker of the reference arc and the navigation tracker of the surgical instrument is used to determine a spatial characteristic of the surgical instrument, such as an position or orientation of the surgical instrument. The spatial characteristic is rendered upon a display unit.
