The design and implementation of a C++ toolkit for integrated medical image processing and analyzing

Zhao, Mingchang; Hui, Hui; Zhu, Xingji; Xue, Jian; Cheng, Zhanglin; Zhao, Hua

doi:10.1117/12.534890

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…There are recent attempts 8,9 to integrate packages from both areas to provide more comprehensive toolkits for medical imaging researchers; however, they are facing problems of various styles. The development of a comprehensive toolkit was also our objective when we were starting our project a few years ago, with imaging and visualization functionalities considered and implemented together consistently.…”

Section: Existing Toolkitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Medical Imaging and Visualization Toolkit in Java

et al. 2006

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Medical imaging research and clinical applications usually require combination and integration of various techniques ranging from image processing and analysis to realistic visualization to user-friendly interaction. Researchers with different backgrounds coming from diverse areas have been using numerous types of hardware, software, and environments to obtain their results. We also observe that students often build their tools from scratch resulting in redundant work. A generic and flexible medical imaging and visualization toolkit would be helpful in medical research and educational institutes to reduce redundant development work and hence increase research efficiency. This paper presents our experience in developing a Medical Imaging and Visualization Toolkit (BIL-kit) that is a set of comprehensive libraries as well as a number of interactive tools. The BIL-kit covers a wide range of fundamental functions from image conversion and transformation, image segmentation, and analysis to geometric model generation and manipulation, all the way up to 3D visualization and interactive simulation. The toolkit design and implementation emphasize the reusability and flexibility. BIL-kit is implemented in the Java language so that it works in hybrid and dynamic research and educational environments. This also allows the toolkit to extend its usage for the development of Web-based applications. Several BIL-kit-based tools and applications are presented including image converter, image processor, general anatomy model simulator, vascular modeling environment, and volume viewer. BIL-kit is a suitable platform for researchers and students to develop visualization and simulation prototypes, and it can also be used for the development of clinical applications.

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Section: Existing Toolkitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Medical Imaging and Visualization Toolkit in Java

et al. 2006

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“…Other recently introduced systems include MITK [46], another system by the same name [47], and IGSTK [48]. The Medical Imaging Interaction Toolkit [46] and the Medical Imaging Toolkit [47] are similar and independent open-source systems that reuse and extend the capabilities of VTK [43] and ITK [6].…”

Section: Current Software Systems and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

CAVASS: a computer-assisted visualization and analysis software system - image processing aspects

Udupa

Grevera

Odhner

et al. 2007

Medical Imaging 2007: Visualization and Image-Guided Procedures

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The development of the concepts within 3DVIEWNIX and of the software system 3DVIEWNIX itself dates back to the 1970s. Since then, a series of software packages for Computer Assisted Visualization and Analysis (CAVA) of images came out from our group, 3DVIEWNIX released in 1993, being the most recent, and all were distributed with source code. CAVASS, an open source system, is the latest in this series, and represents the next major incarnation of 3DVIEWNIX. It incorporates four groups of operations: IMAGE PROCESSING (including ROI, interpolation, filtering, segmentation, registration, morphological, and algebraic operations), VISUALIZATION (including slice display, reslicing, MIP, surface rendering, and volume rendering), MANIPULATION (for modifying structures and surgery simulation), ANALYSIS (various ways of extracting quantitative information). CAVASS is designed to work on all platforms. Its key features are: (1) most major CAVA operations incorporated; (2) very efficient algorithms and their highly efficient implementations; (3) parallelized algorithms for computationally intensive operations; (4) parallel implementation via distributed computing on a cluster of PCs; (5) interface to other systems such as CAD/CAM software, ITK, and statistical packages; (6) easy to use GUI. In this paper, we focus on the image processing operations and compare the performance of CAVASS with that of ITK. Our conclusions based on assessing performance by utilizing a regular (6 MB), large (241 MB), and a super (873 MB) 3D image data set are as follows: CAVASS is considerably more efficient than ITK, especially in those operations which are computationally intensive. It can handle considerably larger data sets than ITK. It is easy and ready to use in applications since it provides an easy to use GUI. The users can easily build a cluster from ordinary inexpensive PCs and reap the full power of CAVASS inexpensively compared to expensive multiprocessing systems which are less efficient for CAVA operations.

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“…As detailed in "Background," several solutions have been proposed before to alleviate the issues above and facilitate ITK programming, including ITKBoard [2], MeVisLab [3,4], and MITK [5,6]. However, these solutions rely on a proprietary graphical user interface (GUI) unique to each implementation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Examples include, but are not limited to, ITKBoard [2], MeVisLab [3,4], MITK [5,6], and VolView [19]. In the case of ITKBoard, this includes the convenience of automatically wrapping ITK.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

SimITK: Visual Programming of the ITK Image-Processing Library within Simulink

et al. 2014

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The Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK) is a software library used for image analysis, visualization, and image-guided surgery applications. ITK is a collection of C++ classes that poses the challenge of a steep learning curve should the user not have appropriate C++ programming experience. To remove the programming complexities and facilitate rapid prototyping, an implementation of ITK within a higher-level visual programming environment is presented: SimITK. ITK functionalities are automatically wrapped into "blocks" within Simulink, the visual programming environment of MATLAB, where these blocks can be connected to form workflows: visual schematics that closely represent the structure of a C++ program. The heavily templated C++ nature of ITK does not facilitate direct interaction between Simulink and ITK; an intermediary is required to convert respective data types and allow intercommunication. As such, a SimITK "Virtual Block" has been developed that serves as a wrapper around an ITK class which is capable of resolving the ITK data types to native Simulink data types. Part of the challenge surrounding this implementation involves automatically capturing and storing the pertinent class information that need to be refined from an initial state prior to being reflected within the final block representation. The primary result from the SimITK wrapping procedure is multiple Simulink block libraries. From these libraries, blocks are selected and interconnected to demonstrate two examples: a 3D segmentation workflow and a 3D multimodal registration workflow. Compared to their pure-code equivalents, the workflows highlight ITK usability through an alternative visual interpretation of the code that abstracts away potentially confusing technicalities.

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The design and implementation of a C++ toolkit for integrated medical image processing and analyzing

Cited by 14 publications

References 7 publications

A Medical Imaging and Visualization Toolkit in Java

A Medical Imaging and Visualization Toolkit in Java

CAVASS: a computer-assisted visualization and analysis software system - image processing aspects

SimITK: Visual Programming of the ITK Image-Processing Library within Simulink

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