3DSlicer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| 3DSlicer | |
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| Design by | The Slicer Community |
| Latest release | Slicer3-3.0 / February 1, 2008 |
| OS | Cross-platform |
| Available in | C++, Tcl, Python, Java |
| Genre | Scientific visualization and image computing |
| License | FOSS |
| Website | www.slicer.org |
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3D Slicer (Slicer) is a free, open source software package for visualization and image analysis. Slicer is used in a variety of medical applications, including autism, multiple sclerosis, Lupus Erythematodes, Prostate Cancer, Schizophrenia, Orthopedic Biomechanics, COPD, Cardiovascular Disease and Neurosurgery. |
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[edit] About Slicer
Slicer's capabilities include:
- Reading and writing DICOM images and a variety of other formats
- Interactive visualization of images, triangulated 3D surface models, and volume renderings
- Manual editing
- Fusion and co-registering of data using rigid and non-rigid algorithms
- Automatic segmentation
- Analysis and visualization of diffusion tensor imaging data
- Tracking of devices for image-guided procedures.
Slicer is compiled for use on multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
Slicer is distributed under a BSD style, free, open source license. The license has no restrictions on use of the software. However, no claims are made on the software being useful for any particular task. It is entirely the responsibility of the user to ensure compliance with local rules and regulations. Slicer has not been approved for clinical use in the US or elsewhere. For the full text of the Slicer license, see here.
[edit] History
Slicer started as David Gering's masters thesis project between the Surgical Planning Laboratory at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1998. 3D Slicer version 2 has been downloaded several thousand times. In 2007 a completely revamped version 3 of Slicer was released. This software has enabled a variety of research publications, all aimed at improving image analysis.
This significant software project has been enabled by the participation of several large-scale NIH funded efforts, including the NA-MIC, NAC, BIRN, CIMIT and NCIGT communities. The funding support comes from several federal funding sources, including NCRR, NIBIB, NIH Roadmap, NCI, NSF and the DOD.
[edit] Users
Slicer's platform provides functionalities for segmentation, registration and three-dimensional visualization of multimodal image data, as well as advanced image analysis algorithms for diffusion tensor imaging, functional magnetic resonance imaging and image-guided therapy. Standard image file formats are supported, and the application integrates interface capabilities to biomedical research software.
Slicer has been used in a variety of clinical research. In image-guided therapy research, Slicer is frequently used to construct and visualize collections of MRI data that are available pre- and intraoperatively to allow for the acquiring of spatial coordinates for instrument tracking. In fact, Slicer has already played such a pivotal role in image-guided therapy, it could be thought of as growing up alongside that field.
In addition to producing 3D models from conventional MRI images, Slicer has also been used to present information derived from fMRI (using MRI to assess blood flow in the brain related to neural or spinal cord activity), DTI (using MRI to measure the restricted diffusion of water in imaged tissue), and electrocardiography. For example, Slicer's DTI package allows the conversion and analysis of DTI images. The results of such analysis can be integrated with the results from analysis of morphologic MRI, MR angiograms and fMRI.
[edit] Developers
Slicer is based on VTK, a graphical library that provides a high-level interface to OpenGL and a pipeline mechanism to connect graphical filters. The library is implemented in C++ but provides a Tcl wrapper to instantiate and execute its methods. Tcl/Tk comprises the rest of 3D Slicer user interface and event handling.
Slicer software supports automatic testing and employs an extreme programming approach with nightly builds natively on multiple platforms. Recent accomplishments include added capability for plugging in external modules using XML-based command line interface.
Slicer.org offers resources for those who would like to improve Slicer designs and applications. Various tutorials and instructions, along with a community of other developers can be found there.
