A method is provided for arterial intervention on a patient that has the steps of obtaining digital image data of the patient's artery from a medical imaging system where the artery has lesions arising from arterial disease, generating a 3D model from this image data, registering the 3D model to an image of the artery that has been visualized in real-time upon an interventional system, navigating an angioplasty delivery system to the artery utilizing this registered 3D model, and using the angioplasty delivery system to treat the artery. Preferably, the digital image data is cardiac image data, the artery is a coronary artery, and the angioplasty delivery system is a stent and stent delivery system. In another aspect of this invention, it provides a system for arterial intervention that has a medical imaging system for obtaining digital image data of at least one of the patient's arteries, an image generation system for generating a 3D model from the image data, an interventional system for visualizing an image of the artery in real-time, a workstation for registering the 3D model to this image, and an angioplasty delivery system that can be navigated to the artery utilizing the registered 3D model.