SidongLiu Update

• Jan 30 - Jan 31
  • Depart from Sydney - Jan 30
  • Arrive in Boston - Jan 31

• Feb 03 - Feb 07
  • Attend Partners orientation - Feb 06

• Feb 24 - Feb 28
  • Attend the Partners orientation
  • MICCAI 2014 paper submissions

• Mar 12 - Mar 14
  • Attend BWH orientation
  • Start to work at SPL, 75 Fransic St

• Mar 17 - Mar 21
  • Make EMBC 2014 paper submission
  • Implement a new functionality for peritumoral tract exploration

• Mar 24 - Mar 28
  • Submit MICCAI 2014 paper reviews
  • SNMMI 2014 abstract papers accepted
  • Reformat the Hausdorff outputs

• Mar 31 - Apr 4
  • Submit postdoctoral fellowship application
  • Start to work at SPL, 1249 Boylston St

• Apr 7 - Apr 11
  • Make CMIG journal paper revision submission
  • Prepare the ACM MM 2014 abstract
  • Work on DTI Editor module ("tract extractor")
  • The fiber selection function can be found in Diffusion -> Tractography -> FiberBundleLabelSelect module.
  • The fiber bundle cropping function can be found in Tractography Display module (http://wiki.slicer.org/slicerWiki/index.php/Documentation/4.3/Modules/TractographyDisplay)
  • Sidong's next task would be learn qt.QImage object and see how to manipulate it in Python. Check Steve's code (https://github.com/pieper/CompareVolumes/blob/master/CompareVolumes.py)
  • A control panel style mosaic to flexibly display different teams or patients. A summary table showing the statistics.

• Apr 14 - Apr 18
  • Try Brain Visa trick on mac (http://brainvisa.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1713#p6399)
  • Explore Nipype to see whether we can convert Gifti to VTK or STL, or other compatible format with Slicer (http://www.mit.edu/~satra/nipype-nightly/users/examples/dmri_connectivity.html)
  • Discuss the response letter for MICCAI 2014 submissions
  • Design Mosaic Viewer outlines
    • Load the test data and create the scene views manually
    • Link the scene views to individual 3D mosaic viewers
    • Test one MRI volume in 4 viewers first; then test 4 MRI volumes in 4 viewers; finally test the DTI data

• Apr 21 - Apr 25
  • Make progress to the Mosaic Viewer module. Now it can display and manipulate multiple independent 3D viewers at the same time
  • Discuss DTI Challenge preparation. Need to install Evernote and Live Minutes to enhance collaboration
  • Next step would be to finalize the Mosaic Viewer by creating a scene view for the it
  • Submit the Grants-in-Aid application
  • The original test dataset is a HARDI dataset with 69 gradients plus 4 baselines, and we extracted 30 volumes whose b-values equal to 1000.

• April 28 - May 02
  • Finalize the Mosaic Viewer module.
  • Successfully load and corrected the Brain Visa surface files into Slicer. Next step would be streamline the process. There might be three potential solutions:
    • Build CLI modules (SlicerToBrainVisa Import and Export) to integrate Brain Visa morphologist tools in Slicer. Check NiftyReg extension as an example (https://github.com/spujol/niftyregExtension) and Hello World tutorial to learn how to integrate .cxx plugins (http://www.slicer.org/slicerWiki/images/2/22/ProgrammingIntoSlicer3.6_SoniaPujol.pdf). Note this tutorial might need to be updated to Slicer 4.
    • Build a Python wrapper which point to the Brain Visa executable files and run Brain Visa in Slicer.
    • Write a simple script to 1) convert nhdr to Nifty; 2) filp left / right by changing RAS to LPI coordinate system; 3) run Morphologist pipeline in Brain Visa; 4) load output .ply file in Slicer; and 5) apply 'BrainVisatoSlicer' transform if the coordinate differences were independent to the datasets.
  • Test the DWIConverter module to convert DICOM to nhdr using the datasets '...high-b.raw.gz' dataset and compare the output to '...high-b.nhdr'.
  • New tasks regarding the test dataset:
    • Create the tractography for extracted dataset only using single tensor algorithm
    • Compare the result to that of original dataset using UKF extension
    • Run the DTIPrep extension on both datasets (original and extracted)

• May 05 - May 09
  • Reconstruct the tensors using eigen values and eigen vectors. Slicer could not handle eigen vectors directly, so we ned to calculate the 7 coefficients in the tensor matrix.
  • CMIG multi-channel pattern analysis paper accepted

• May 12 - May 16
  • Run DTIPrep for all the datasets.
  • Clean up and classify all the processed datasets.
  • Send email to Francois checking what are the differences VC and QCed results.
  • Send BrainVisa screenshots to Sonia, describing the sulci recognition problems.
  • Run UKF tractography with 1-6 seeds per voxel, 2 tensors, other parameters by default.

• May 19 - May 23
  • Process the new dataset 'test1'
  • Solve the DTIPrep problems.
    • 1 Why there are 4 baseline images in the original dataset, but only one is left after processing?
    • - All the baselines are merged into one image.
    • 2. How to see the sphere after quality check?
    • - We need to first save the results, and then load the XML to DTIPrep.
    • 3. Why the gradient directions are changed after processing?
    • - This might be a bug, resulted from rounding errors.
    • 4. Why there are holes in the QCed DTI dataset?
    • - We need to reset the parameter 'DTI_bCompute - DTI_baselineThreshold'.

• May 26 - May 30
  • Submit propagation matrix fusion paper to ICARCV 2014.
  • Rerun DTIPrep on 'test1'. After testing with different settings, we found when this parameter is set to less than 50, the holes disappear.

• Jun 02 - Jun 06
  • Run BrainVisa on T1 and T2 registered data, use label map as a mask to filter out the lesion from the generated surface. Try 'Resample Scalar/Vector/DWI Volume' module, set 'Interpolation Type' to ws.
  • Run 'Slicer Surface Toolbox' to refine BrainVisa surface. Chcek 'splitting' box in Normals.
  • Convert DICOM to FSL (nifty) format.
  • Be Invited as one of the NA-MIC tutorial contest judges.
  • Attend Junichi's MRI-Robotic experiment

• Jun 09 - Jun 13
  • Test DWIConvert on Sample Data - DWIVolume
    • NrrdToFSL: Slicer-build/lib/Slicer-4.3/cli-modules/DWIConvert --conversionMode NrrdToFSL --inputVolume ./dwi.nhdr --outputVolume ./dwi_fsl.nii.gz --outputBValues ./bvals.txt --outputBVectors ./bvec.txt
    • FSLToNrrd: Slicer-build/lib/Slicer-4.3/cli-modules/DWIConvert --conversionMode FSLToNrrd --inputVolume ./dwi_fsl.nii.gz --outputVolume ./dwi_reconverted.nrrd --inputBValues ./bvals.txt --inputBVectors ./bvec.txt
  • Process the dataset of 'test1' with DWIConverter

• Jun 16 - Jun 20
  • Prepare the DS-2019 extension
  • Process the dataset of 'patient2' with BrainVisa
  • Process the dataset of 'patient3' with BrainVisa
  • MICCAI 2014 Machine Learning Challenge (MLD) result was revealed and we ranked 10th in 50 teams.

• Jun 23 - Jun 27 (NA-MIC 2014 SUMMER PROJECT WEEK)
  • CAD Toolbox for Neurodegenerative Disease Diagnosis (http://www.na-mic.org/Wiki/index.php/2014_Summer_Project_Week:CAD_Toolbox_for_Neurological_Disorders)
  • Serve as NA-MIC tutorial contest judge
  • Process the dataset of 'patient2_1' with DWIConverter. The b-values were found wrong.
  • Prepare the DICTA 2014 abstract

• Jun 30 - Jul 04
  • Reprocess the dataset of 'patient2_1' with DWI Converter. The b-values seem correct.
  • Test 'DICOM-TO-NIFTI-CONVERTER' matlab toolbox (http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/41874-dicom-to-nifti-converter/content/dicom2nifti.m). However, this toolbox is not usable for our SIEMENS data, because it only work with DICOM files from Phillips Achieva 3T R2.6 with
    • Slice orientation : transverse
    • Patient position : head first
    • Patient orientation: supine
    • Fold-over direction: AP
    • Fat shift direction: P
    • Gradient resolution: high (DTI)
    • Gradient overplus : yes (DTI)
    • Sort images : b=0 volume first (DTI)
  • Make the submission for DICTA 2014

• Jul 07 - Jul 11
  • Finalize DS-2019 extension, turns out that no need to extend it
  • Mosaic Viewer first workable version
  • ICARCV paper accepted
  • Be awarded the Sydney University Graduates Union of North America (SUGUNA) Alumni Scholarship.