MEDICAL WORKSTATIONS FOR APPLIED IMAGING AND GRAPHICS RESEARCH

We present a medical workstation for the efficient implementation of r esearch ideas related to image processing and computer graphics. Based on standard hardware platforms the software system encompasses two ma jor components: A turnkey application system provides a functionality kernel for a broad community of clinical users working with digital im aging devices, including methods of noise suppression, interactive and automatic segmentation, 3D surface reconstruction and multi-modal reg istration. A development toolbox allows new algorithms and application s to be efficiently implemented and consistently integrated with the c ommon framework of the turnkey system. The platform is based on an ela borate object class structure describing objects for image processing, computer graphics, study handling and user interface control. Thus ex pertise of computer scientists familiar with this application domain i s brought into the hospital and can be readily used by clinical resear chers.