IGT:2005 MICCAI lunch meeting notes

Agendata: Synergies between [1], an NIH funded open source software toolkit for image-guided surgery, and software needs of IGT. This is an informal meeting with the rough agenda of the BWH team learning from the IGSTK team about how much/what of the IGSTK functionality can be leveraged in IGT.

Attendees:

• Kevin Cleary, Georgetown (Minutes)
• Noby Hata, BWH
• Ron Kikinis, BWH / NAMIC
• Randy Ellis, BWH
• Steve Pieper, BWH
• Sonja Pujol, BWH
• Tina Kapur, NAMIC
• Stephen Aylward, UNC
• Luis Ibanez, Kitware
• Peter Kazanzides, Hopkins ERC

Points of Discussion:

• Randy Ellis gave a summary of the Slicer re-architecture effort. {have Randy put a sentence, no more than three sentences, here – editor}

• IGSTK is a joint project between Georgetown, Kitware, and UNC with Kevin Cleary as the PI. It is funded by NIH under a Phase II STTR that is due to expire in August. Luis Ibanez is the chief architect and noted that the goal of IGSTK is to provide a very robust and reliable software. With this purpose in mind, IGSTK has been designed using an architecture based on state-machines. The software development process of IGSTK follows closely the one of ITK/VTK (using CVS, Dart, CMake, phpBugTracker) but raises the bar on quality control (zero warnings/zero errors) and pursues 100% code coverage on Testing. IGSTK is distributed under a BSD License.

• Peter Kazanzides summarized software development activities at the ERC which include software for image-guided surgery. A unique feature of the ERC effort has also been their emphasis on open source software for medical robots.

• As noted by Ron Kikinis, there is more than enough work to go around and we should coordinate efforts to avoid duplication. It was suggested that this could be the beginning of an open source IGS (image-guided surgery) consortium. The group agreed to meet in Boston on Wed. Nov. 16 to have a more in-depth discussion and additional exchange of information. Those who cannot attend in person should plan to participate by teleconference if at all possible or send a representative. A workshop may also be planned in the future.

• The mantra of the group was expressed as “BSD, open source, no IP” and these could be considered the ground rules for participation.

• There was great enthusiasm for coordination and technical exchange as evidenced by the many side conversations and other discussion that had to be stopped due to the lack of time.

• Corrections / additions / suggestions to these notes are welcome and appreciated.