Concept and realization of an object-oriented class-library designed for 3-D image processing and visualization in medical diagnostics

For interactive diagnostics or therapy planning on tomographic images hard- and software as well as concept specific dependencies should be avoided to reduce development costs and to increase portability to other platforms. A set of object-oriented class libraries was designed to work on several operating systems (e.g. UNIX, Windows(TM) NT/95) and respects actual programming standards. The conceptual link between pixels, slice orientation, and geometry was incorporated to a topology class. It manages the spatial image orientation and handles regularly (e.g. X-ray CT, MRI) and irregularly (e.g. free-hand sweep 3-D ultrasound) arranged image volumes. An image analysis library includes numerous operators applicable to single-channel (e.g. gray-scale) and multi-channel (e.g. color) images. A 3-D model and visualization library allows to reconstruct anatomical structures, which can be interactively measured and virtually cut. Due to the topology management a Cartesian re-arrangement of irregularly oriented images with increasing storage demands can be avoided. Because the libraries are implemented using C++ and Open Inventor(TM), applications can be easily prototyped and identical visualization and planning features can be used independent of the operating system. By the use of platform independent concepts, programming languages and standards, the program libraries could be used in multiple environments. Application development time was drastically reduced.