Viar-Hernández David, Rodriguez-Vila Borja, Gil-Correa Mario, Malpica Norberto, Torrado-Carvajal Ángel
Medical Image Analysis and Biometry Laboratory, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Tulipán s/n, 28933, Madrid, Spain.
Heliyon. 2024 Feb 22;10(5):e26408. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e26408. eCollection 2024 Mar 15.
We present the evolution of medical imaging software and its impact on the medical imaging community through the study of four open-source image analysis software platforms: 3D Slicer, FreeSurfer, FSL, and SPM. We have studied the impact of these software tools over time, measured by the number of scientific citations. Additionally, we have also studied the source code evolution by measuring the lines of code and the tarball size of the stable releases and the changes in programming languages. The rising number of related scientific publications confirms the popularity of these software tools in the research community, albeit some differences can be observed in the popularity of the tools. Moreover, we demonstrate that source code has evolved to modernize and optimize, at least partially thanks to the collaboration and code sharing with the user community. Furthermore, this evolution reveals an increased use of higher-level programming languages and meta-languages. The study of four open-source packages has revealed certain patterns in the evolution of medical imaging software and their impact on the medical image community. Further analyses and complementary metrics are suggested.
3D Slicer、FreeSurfer、FSL和SPM的研究，展示了医学成像软件的发展历程及其对医学成像领域的影响。我们通过科学引用次数来衡量这些软件工具随时间推移所产生的影响。此外，我们还通过测量稳定版本的代码行数、压缩包大小以及编程语言的变化来研究源代码的演变。相关科学出版物数量的不断增加证实了这些软件工具在研究领域的受欢迎程度，尽管在工具的受欢迎程度上可以观察到一些差异。此外，我们证明，至少部分得益于与用户社区的协作和代码共享，源代码已经朝着现代化和优化的方向发展。此外，这种演变表明高级编程语言和元语言的使用有所增加。对四个开源软件包的研究揭示了医学成像软件演变中的某些模式及其对医学图像领域的影响。我们还提出了进一步的分析和补充指标。
