Documentation/Nightly/Modules/OpenIGTLinkRemote/BrainlabTutorial

About This Page

Brainlab surgical navigation system provides a research interface called "IGTLink", which allows 3D Slicer and other OpenIGTLink-compatible software to connect and query images and tracking data through the network. This page describes how to connect 3D Slicer to the Brainlab system.

Prerequisite

To follow this tutorial, you will need:

• Brainlab navigation system connected to the local area network. IGTLink must be activated.
• 3D Slicer ver. 4.3.x
• SlicerIGT Extension, which you can install through Extension Manager.

Things We Can Do with Brainlab's IGTLink Interface

• Query a list of images
• Query images
• Query targets
• Query trajectories (not available in 3D Slicer yet...)
• Stream real-time tracking data

Establish Connection

1. On the Brainlab's console, activate "IGTLink". The Brainlab system start waiting for a connection from 3D Slicer as a TCP server.
2. On 3D Slicer, open "IGT"->"OpenIGTLink IF" and Open "Connector" tab.
3. Click "+" button to add a new connector
4. Check "Client" radio button and type the IP/hostname and the port number in the "Hostname" and "Port" text box. The default port number is 22222.
5. Click "Active"
6. Check if any message shows up on the Brainlab's console.
7. If 3D Slicer is successfully connected to the Brianlab system, "Status" in the list of connector shows "ON".

Query Image Data

1. Open "IGT"->"OpenIGTLink Remote" module in 3D Slicer

Contributors of this Tutorial

• Isaiah Norton, BWH
• Alireza Mehrtash, BWH
• Junichi Tokuda, BWH
• Nobuhiko Hata, BWH