Rapid prototyping of clinical software assistants

Abstract

Computer assistance in image-based diagnosis and therapy are continuously growing fields that have gained importance in several medical disciplines. Today, various free and commercial tools are available. However, only few are routinely applied in clinical practice. Especially tools that provide a flexible support of the whole design process from development and evaluation to the actual deployment in a clinical environment are missing.In this work, we introduce a categorization of the design process into different types and fields of application. To this end, we propose a novel framework that allows the development of software assistants that can be integrated into the design process of new algorithms and systems. We focus on the specific features of software prototypes that are valuable for engineers and clinicians, rather than on product development. An important aspect in this work is the categorization of the software design process into different components. Furthermore, we examine the interaction between these categories based on a new knowledge flow model. Finally, an encapsulation of these tasks within an application framework is proposed. We discuss general requirements and present a layered architecture. Several components for data-and workflow-management provide a generic functionality that can be customized on the developer and the user level. A flexible handling of is offered through the use of a visual programming and rapid prototyping platform. Currently, the framework is used in 15 software prototypes and as a basis of commercial products. More than 90 clinical partners all over the world work with these tools.

The Medical Exploration Toolkit: An Efficient Support for Visual Computing in Surgical Planning and Training

“…But some of them are focused on the creation of singular impressive visualizations (e.g., VolumeShop [6]), some of them focus on medical image analysis (e.g., MITK [39], 3DSlicer [24]), and only a few support application building (e.g., SciRun [37], MeVisLab [27]). To the best of our knowledge, there is no toolkit or framework to create efficient medical applications with high-end visualizations, adequate interaction techniques, and user interface guidance.…”

“…MeVisLab [27] is a freely as well as commercially available visual programming and rapid prototyping platform for image processing research and development with a focus on medical imaging and visualization (for an example, see Fig. 1).…”

“…With the MEDI-CALEXPLORATIONTOOLKIT (METK) we present a widely applicable library for application development that closes the gap between image analysis, processing, and basic visualizations on the one hand, and the surgical needs concerning visualization and interaction on the other hand. The METK is based on the image processing and development environment MeVisLab [21], [27].…”

Interactive Design and Debugging of Gpu-Based Volume Visualizations

“…The established RPEs like Amira (Stalling et al, 2005), AVS/Express (Hewitt et al, 2005), MevisLab (Rexilius et al, 2006), SCIRun (Weinstein et al, 2005), and VisTrails (Bavoil et al, 2005) focus on the entire process of analyzing data; the visualization is only the final step and in some systems even 1 www.voreen.org a minor aspect. Mostly slice-based methods are used for the visualization of volumetric data which have algorithm-immanent disadvantages such as less flexibility and worse image quality in comparison to raycasting.…”

METK — The Medical Exploration Toolkit

“…Also simple tasks such as loading specific patient image data or the visualization of segmented structures require a deep knowledge of the used techniques. The Application Frame (AppFrame) facilitates the integration and testing of new algorithms and the development of application prototypes with MeVisLab that can be used in clinical environments [5]. While AppFrame indeed addresses generic issues such as DICOM image import and export, user-management, reporting, and documentation functionality, it does not provide advanced visualization and exploration techniques.…”