,
Rex M. Jakobovits, PhD
,
Richard F. Martin, PhD,
David P. Corina, PhD
,
James F. Brinkley, MD, PhD,
Rex M. Jakobovits, PhD,
Richard F. Martin, PhD,
David P. Corina, PhD,
James F. Brinkley, MD, PhDStructural Informatics
Group, Department of Biological Structure, University of WashingtonDepartment
of Psychology, University of WashingtonDepartment
of Radiological Sciences, UCLA and Workhost.comSkandha4
Skandha4 is a general purpose graphics toolkit, which combines a subset
of Common Lisp - useful for fast interactive programming and prototyping
- with the ability to add pre-compiled C-based primitive functions that
significantly accelerate computationally demanding routines. Skandha4 supports
3D graphics, with drivers for IRIX GL and OpenGL available. It includes
a module for processing and storing MRI data, with support for the Montreal
MINC 3-D image volume file format added recently. Server capabilities make
it possible to use Skandha4 as a backend graphics server for web-based
applications, in which the server is used to generate images from 3D models
to support interactive visualization on the web.
Skandha4 is currently used as a graphics engine for several applications: 1) Brain Mapper (Hinshaw et al., 1997) is an application that implements complex workflow of data processing for language mapping. The steps include aligning MRI data - structural, veins, arteries and functional, isolating the brain, reconstructing 3D models, and interactively integrating cortical stimulation sites with the 3D models using intra-operative photographs of the cortical surface; 2) Dynamic 3D scene navigation in web-based anatomy atlases (Wong et al., 1998) utilizes Skandha4 as its backend graphics server; and 3) Functional MRI visualization and analysis tool (Poliakov et al., 1999) is yet another example of using Skandha4 toolkit.
WIRM
The Web Interface Repository Manager (WIRM) is a Perl-based application
server that provides a high-level programming environment for developing
web-based multimedia database systems (Jakobovits et al., 1996). WIRM consists
of an object-relational database, and a suite of Perl interfaces for visualizing,
integrating and analyzing heterogeneous multimedia data. It provides facilities
for creating context-sensitive views over a multimedia database, allowing
developers to rapidly build dynamic web sites that adapt their content
and presentation to multiple classes of end-users. These capabilities are
illustrated with a Lab
Library Demo - a system for loaning and returning books in the office,
and by our Brain
Mapper Experiment Management System. The Brain Map system is currently
used by neuroscientists and clinicians to share language-related experimental
data on the web, and to manage the workflow of complex data analysis systems
for studying language.
Current Work
In our current work we continue improving performance and expanding
features, as well as developing applications that utilize both the Skandha4
and WIRM toolkits. In particular, a web-accessible implementation of the
Skandha4 functional MRI visualization and analysis tool (Albright, unpublished)
has been prototyped using both an HTML forms-based and a Java-based approach.
We are also working to integrate the 3D graphics server capabilities of
Skandha4 with the web and database capabilities of WIRM, the result of
which will be a visualization and management system for multimedia brain
data that can be accessed from a simple web browser.
References
K. P. Hinshaw and J. F. Brinkley, Using 3-D shape models to guide segmentation of MR brain images, Proceedings, American Medical Informatics Association, Nashville, Tennessee, 1997.
B. A. Wong and J. F. Brinkley, Dynamic 3-D scene navigation in web-based anatomy atlases, Proceedings, American Medical Informatics Association Fall Symposium Orlando, Florida, 1998.
A. V. Poliakov, K. P. Hinshaw, C. Rosse and J. F. Brinkley, Integration and Visualization of Multimodality Brain Data for Language Mapping, Proceedings, American Medical Informatics Association Fall Symposium Washington, D.C., 1999.
R. M. Jakobovits, B. Modayur, and J. F. Brinkley, A Web-based repository manager for brain mapping data. Proceedings, American Medical Informatics Association Fall Symposium Fall Symposium Washington, D.C., 1996.