Collaboration/VMTK

Objective:

As a result of the Programming Half Week in SLC, vmtk command-line pipes can be automatically converted in CLI modules for Slicer3. However, a few issues still exist, mainly associated with the fact that vmtk is vtk based, and thus it is not MRML aware. This generates the sort of problems described in Execution Model Reference Systems. Solving coordinate system consistency issues is the first aim of the project during the Boston Programming Week. This part of the project will benefit from the interaction with 2007_Project_Week_MIT_MRML_Scenes_for_the_Execution_Model.

Following the recent introduction of Python in Slicer3, it is in principle possible to use vmtk directly from Slicer's Python shell. This is would be a nice alternative to calling vmtk from the command line, since vmtk is primarily a Python module.

The idea, which could be potentially useful for other projects, is to create a general Python Execution module Ultimately the user would write a Python class with

• a method that spits out the description of the instance variables to be exposed on the GUI, the CLI module way (in this case, instance variables could be wrapped vtk objects or wrapped MRML nodes)
• a standard method (e.g. Execute()) that runs the class main functionality

Slicer would take care of building the GUI and setting the state of the object on the basis of the XML description before calling Execute.

In summary, the tasks to be completed for this programming week are

• solve last issues with consistency of reference systems and generate a bunch of vmtk CLI modules
• exploit Python in Slicer3

Progress:

Next Steps:

Key Investigators:

• Luca Antiga, Mario Negri Institute
• Dan Blezek, GE

Publications:

Reference: http://vmtk.sourceforge.net

Additional Links:

• 4 block ppt