caBIG InVivo Imaging Middleware
NCI caBIG's In Vivo Imaging Workspace was formed in the Fall of 2005. The Ohio State University Department of Biomedical Informatics has been involved with the workspace from its inception. We have developed an application, called gridIMAGE, to illustrate utilities of the caBIG grid to the radiology community, and have actively participated in the workspace to disseminate grid ideology and help in shaping the In Vivo Imaging Workspace. In the first half of 2006, we demonstrated gridIMAGE to the caBIG community at both the caBIG annual meeting as well as the In Vivo Imaging Workspace face-to-face meetings. The work lead to RadioGraphics and Journal of Digital Imaging article submission, and the award of the In Vivo Imaging (IVI) Middleware development contract.
The second half of the year involved additional participation in the workspace, the design and implementation of the IVI Middleware, and further development of the gridIMAGE software. The IVI Middleware includes three major objectives: DICOM-Grid Interoperability to facilitate exchange of image data between existing DICOM PACS and grid entities, efficient transport of large amount of binary image data, and Service Development Kit to facilitate development and deployment of image related grid services. The gridIMAGE application allows geographically dispersed image review and analysis, with the driving use cases being Lung Cancer Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD), multiple human reviews of Lung CT cases, PET-CT image fusion, and pathology image analysis. gridIMAGE utilizes the functionalities implemented in the IVI Middleware and caGrid toolkit, and ties together grid services that expose resources such as image repositories, xml databases, as well as analytical capabilities provided by commercial CAD packages, MatLab, and IDL-based image analysis applications. We have also developed a second application called VirtualPACS, which allows a radiologists to use a DICOM workstation to access PACS systems exposed on caGrid.
GridIMAGE and IVI Middleware have been demonstrated at Supercomputing 2006, as well as RSNA 2006. The demonstrations generated a significant amount of interest. Specifically, they were well received by NCI Director and management during their tour of the caBIG IVI workspace exhibit area at RSNA, and resulted in contacts with companies such IBM, Cedera, and Kitware, and organizations including QARC, ACRIN, ATC, and IHE towards potential collaboration.
Project Researchers
Ashish Sharma, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator)
Tony Pan, M.S. (Principal Investigator)
Berkant Barla Cambazoglu, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator)