Modules:VMTKSlicerModule

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Module Name

VmtkSlicerModule

Part of the VMTK in 3D Slicer collection

General Information

Module Type & Category

Type: GUI-less loadable module

Category: Extension

Authors, Collaborators & Contact

• Author: Daniel Haehn, University of Heidelberg
• Acknowledgments: Luca Antiga, Mario Negri Institute; Steve Pieper, Isomics Inc.
• Contact: Daniel Haehn, haehn@bwh.harvard.edu

Module Description

This GUI-less loadable module provides the libraries of the Vascular Modeling Toolkit (http://www.vmtk.org/) in 3D Slicer.

It is part of the NA-MIC VMTK Collaboration.

Official project page: http://www.vmtk.org/Main/VmtkIn3DSlicer

Usage

Installation

This module can be installed using the 3D Slicer extension wizard. The extension is called VmtkSlicerModule.

When the module was successfully installed, all VMTK extensions can be used.

Examples, Use Cases & Tutorials

The actual VMTK functions for end users are provided as Python scripted modules.

After installing this module, the following extensions can be installed and used.

• VMTKCenterlines providing centerline computation of surface models

• VMTKEasyLevelSetSegmentation providing level-set segmentation of vessels, aneurysms and tubular structures using an easy interface

• VMTKLevelSetSegmentation providing level-set segmentation of vessels, aneurysms and tubular structures using different algorithms for initialization and evolution

• VMTKVesselEnhancement providing vessel enhancement filters to highlight vascular or tubular structures

Development

Notes from the Developer(s)

The algorithms provided by VMTK and by this module are C++ classes implemented using VTK and ITK.

Source code & Documentation

The complete source code is available at a NITRC SVN repository.

The most important files are the following:

• CMakeLists.txt to include the vtkVmtk libraries during compilation

• vtkVmtkSlicerModuleLogic.cxx to initialize the generated Tcl wrapper classes of the vtkVmtk libraries

During a SVN check out, the actual VMTK libraries are automatically checked out using a svn:external repository. Therefore always the latest version of VMTK is included as a subdirectory.

Since the Tcl initialization is performed, the vtkVmtk library can also be accessed from Python in 3D Slicer.

Information and documentation concerning the integration of VMTK can be found in this student research project write-up.

Documentation of the VMTK libraries is available here.

Known bugs

Follow this link to the VMTK in 3D Slicer bug tracker.

More Information

Acknowledgment

This work was funded by a grant of the Thomas­-Gessmann Foundation part of the Founder Federation for German Science.

References

• Antiga L, Piccinelli M, Botti L, Ene-Iordache B, Remuzzi A and Steinman DA. An image-based modeling framework for patient-specific computational hemodynamics. Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing, 46: 1097-1112, Nov 2008.
• D. Hähn. Integration of the vascular modeling toolkit in 3d slicer. SPL, 04 2009. Available online at http://www.spl.harvard.edu/publications/item/view/1728.
• Piccinelli M, Veneziani A, Steinman DA, Remuzzi A, Antiga L (2009) A framework for geometric analysis of vascular structures: applications to cerebral aneurysms. IEEE Trans Med Imaging. In press.