Visible Human Project Image Processing Tools

RES710 – NLM “VHTK”

The underlying basis of the Visible Human Project (VHP) is a set of three-dimensional high-resolution digital image data of human cadavers in multiple image modalities. An impediment to the advancement and dissemination of research using these three-dimensional, stacked image data is the lack of definition and availability of a common, basic software infrastructure for registration and segmentation.

The research intends to develop requirements for segmentation and registration infrastructure through collaborative definition of a taxonomy of existing methodology and algorithms. We will then design and implement part of the infrastructure based on the defined requirements, and develop demonstration applications for segmentation and registration of VHP data.

In addition, Insightful intends to serve in the role of systems integrator in this collaborative effort. We will maintain a repository for the code base and documentation; maintain a web site for inter-collaborator and –contractor communication; provide standards for uniformity of code, documentation, and tests; perform integration testing; and perform release engineering tasks such as the systematic and periodic building and release of the software.

This will result in a common, basic software framework for the advancement and dissemination of research and the development of applications using the VHP and other stacked image data.