Projects:ARRA:SlicerAM RSNA09Report

RSNA 2009 Report

Here are my (Kilian) observations after reviewing the annotation tools of GE, Phillips, Siemens, and ClearCanvas (www.clearcanvas.ca/dnn) at RSNA 2009:

• All tools were very simple to use and fast
• Most functionality is one MB click away and shown via buttons - look for example at ClearCanvas (an open source annotation tool shown at the AIM booth)
• The GUI adopts to the application. The user first selects the application (such as cardiac: vessel extraction), which creates a GUI with a specific work-flow. The work-flow only shows a small subset of the overall functionality of the annotation tool. The selection of the application also triggers some preprocessing
• seamless integration of 2D and 3D viewer - 3D rendering functionality is very important
• all tools just used a default display (coloring, font, ...) for annotations

Functionality available in tools

Snapshots taken from ClearCanvas

• exists in Slicer:
  • annotation can be performed on 3D rendering window
  • measure angle between two lines
  • simple tissue segmentation via definition of ROI and thresholding
  • help page with detail instructions
  • setting fiducial
  • calculate volume
  • go back a step

• missing in Slicer:
  • 3D line drawing in 2D Viewer via changing the slice
  • 2D Viewer where orientation of slice can be changed in 3D
  • show a line for location of other slices in 3D Viewer
  • perform text annotation by selecting labels from anatomy dictionary (such as RadLex)
  • text annotation with or without arrow, annotation can be moved anywhere in viewer (F,G)
    • just show label , when the mouse is over label entire text pops up
  • press button for creating HIPPA compliant data
  • Picture in picture (L)

• not sure if functionality exists/ functionality only partly exists
  • change window level, image resolution by moving mouse or moving lines symbolizing slices in orthogonal view
  • define ROI via corner points (E)
  • viewing volumes of a longitudinal scan side by side
  • remove part of the image shown in the 2D/3D window - partially implemented in Slicer with ROI, here we can also draw a polygons
  • snapshot of viewer - pop up window shows snapshot
  • Definition of ROI/VOI: ellipse, rectangle, polygon, Intensity Min Max, Free hand (C,E,H,J)
  • Definition of Distance/Volume: Line, between two lines, see ROI types ; distance is shown as annotation in image (A,B)
  • Definition of Angle: 2 Lines, Polygon ; angle is shown as annotation in image (I)
  • press on annotation in (annotation) list. The viewer orientation is reset to the view present when setting the annotation
  • when setting fiducials the intensity at this point is shown

Next steps for AMI Project

1. Automatically create fiducial list when new volume is annotated in annotation module / Get rid of fiducial list as every list is associated with one volume only => no need for fiducial list
2. The Annotation Application Module (AAM) defines a list of markups (i.e. type of mark ups, measurement, and text) available for a specific applications (such as CT torso) . The user can select the application list in the Annotation Module (AM) , which automatically defines the GUI of AM. At a later stage link with preprocessing and simple work-flow technology (just window panels)
3. The annotation module consists of three panels:
   • Panel 1 - Application Selection: the user selects the Application (Application 'Default' is set by default). Selecting an application triggers reconfiguring Panel 2 by showing the buttons of annotation types associated with the application. At a later stage, we can also use it to link it with preprocessing of the image such as 3D rendering of CT images.
   • Panel 2 - Annotation Selection: Lists the buttons associated with the Application. By activating the button, the user can then annotate the image with the type associated with the button.
   • Panel 3 - Annotation Report: The annotations in the image are list in the table. The table list the name of the annotation, measurement, delete button, hide button, detail button. Clicking on the annotation in the table triggers the annotation to be shown at the time when it was created. Pressing the detail button pops up a window showing the detail annotations (text) associated with this entry.

AIM

• Current web site: https://cabig.nci.nih.gov/tools/AIM
• Contact Person at RSNA: Vladimir Kleper (NWU) - AIM's software engineer - vkleper@northwestern.edu -
• At RSNA showed plug-in with http://www.clearcanvas.ca/dnn/
• Used http://radlex.org/viewer as an example for dictionaries