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