Huang Su, Baimouratov Rafail, Xiao Pengdong, Ananthasubramaniam Anand, Nowinski Wieslaw L
Biomedical Imaging Lab, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, 30 Biopolis Street, #07-01 Matrix, Singapore 138671, Singapore.
J Digit Imaging. 2006 Mar;19(1):17-29. doi: 10.1007/s10278-005-9247-6.
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.
医学成像研究和临床应用通常需要将从图像处理与分析到逼真可视化再到用户友好交互等各种技术进行组合与集成。来自不同领域、具有不同背景的研究人员一直在使用多种类型的硬件、软件和环境来获取研究成果。我们还观察到，学生们常常从头构建自己的工具，导致工作冗余。一个通用且灵活的医学成像与可视化工具包将有助于医学研究机构和教育机构减少重复开发工作，从而提高研究效率。本文介绍了我们开发医学成像与可视化工具包（BIL-kit）的经验，它是一组综合库以及许多交互式工具。BIL-kit涵盖了广泛的基本功能，从图像转换与变换、图像分割与分析到几何模型生成与操作，一直到三维可视化和交互式模拟。该工具包的设计与实现强调了可重用性和灵活性。BIL-kit是用Java语言实现的，因此它可以在混合和动态的研究与教育环境中运行。这也使得该工具包能够扩展其用途，用于基于网络的应用程序开发。文中展示了几个基于BIL-kit的工具和应用，包括图像转换器、图像处理器、大体解剖模型模拟器、血管建模环境和体数据查看器。BIL-kit是研究人员和学生开发可视化与模拟原型的合适平台，它也可用于临床应用的开发。
