Abstract
A multidimensional image navigation and display software was designed for display and interpretation of large sets of multidimensional and multimodality images such as combined PET-CT studies. The software is developed in Objective-C on a Macintosh platform under the MacOS X operating system using the GNUstep development environment. It also benefits from the extremely fast and optimized 3D graphic capabilities of the OpenGL graphic standard widely used for computer games optimized for taking advantage of any hardware graphic accelerator boards available. In the design of the software special attention was given to adapt the user interface to the specific and complex tasks of navigating through large sets of image data. An interactive jog-wheel device widely used in the video and movie industry was implemented to allow users to navigate in the different dimensions of an image set much faster than with a traditional mouse or on-screen cursors and sliders. The program can easily be adapted for very specific tasks that require a limited number of functions, by adding and removing tools from the program’s toolbar and avoiding an overwhelming number of unnecessary tools and functions. The processing and image rendering tools of the software are based on the open-source libraries ITK and VTK. This ensures that all new developments in image processing that could emerge from other academic institutions using these libraries can be directly ported to the OsiriX program. OsiriX is provided free of charge under the GNU open-source licensing agreement at http://homepage.mac.com/rossetantoine/osirix.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
WV Voge WJ Oyen JO Barentsz et al. (2004) ArticleTitlePET/CT: panacea, redundancy, or something in between? J Nucl Med 45 IssueIDSuppl 1 15S–24S Occurrence Handle14736832
T Flohr B Ohnesorge H Bruder et al. (2003) ArticleTitleImage reconstruction and performance evaluation for ECG-gated spiral scanning with a 16-slice CT system Med Phys. 30 2650–2662 Occurrence Handle10.1118/1.1593637 Occurrence Handle14596302
R Salgado T Mulkens P Bellinck et al. (2003) ArticleTitleVolume rendering in clinical practice, a pictorial review JBR-BTR 86 IssueID4 215–220 Occurrence Handle1:STN:280:DC%2BD3svmsV2htQ%3D%3D Occurrence Handle14527062
MA Kirchgeorg M Prokop (1998) ArticleTitleIncreasing spiral CT benefits with postprocessing applications Review. Eur J Radiol 28 39–54 Occurrence Handle10.1016/S0720-048X(98)00011-4 Occurrence Handle1:STN:280:DyaK1czotlemug%3D%3D
Y Ligier M Funk O Ratib et al. (1991) The OSIRIS user interface for manipulating medical images Springer-Verlag (Eds) Picture archiving and communication system (PACS) in medicine. Evian: NATO ASI Series Springer-Verlag Berlin, Heidelberg 395–399
O Ratib Y Ligier C Mascarini et al. (1997) ArticleTitleMultimedia image and data navigation workstation RadioGraphics 17 515–521 Occurrence Handle1:STN:280:ByiB3sjmtF0%3D Occurrence Handle9084087
The Visualization Toolkit (VTK): http://public.kitware.com/VTK/, Accessed February 20, 2004
The Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK): http://itk.org/, Accessed February 20, 2004
MJ Ackerman TS Yoo (2003) ArticleTitleThe Visible Human Data Sets (VHD) and Insight Toolkit (ITK): Experiments in Open Source Software Proc AMIA Symp . 773 Occurrence Handle14728278
GNUstep Framework: http://www.gnustep.org/, Accessed February 20, 2004
Cocoa Framework: http://developer.apple.com/, Accessed February 20, 2004
Objective-C language; http://theory.uwinnipeg.ca/gnu/libobjects/objective-c_toc.html, Accessed February 20, 2004
GNU GCC Compiler. http://gcc.gnu.org, Accessed February 20, 2004
OpenGL: http://opengl.org, Accessed February 20, 2004
NVIDIA, Inc., Company: http://www.nvidia.com, Accessed February 20, 2004
ATI, Inc., Company; http://www.ati.com, Accessed February 20, 2004
Papyrus Toolkit, Digital Imaging Unit, Geneva University Hospital: http://www.expasy.ch/UIN/html1/projects/papyrus/papyrus.html, Accessed January 10, 2004
ANSI C: American National Standard for Information. http://www.lysator.liu.se/c/rat/title.html, Accessed January 10, 2004
DICOM Offis Toolkit: http://dicom.offis.de, Accessed January 10, 2004
Altivec / PowerPC: http://www.ibm.com/powerpc, Accessed January 10, 2004
Quicktime. Apple Computer: http://www.quicktime.com, Accessed February 20, 2004
RH Wiggins C Davidson R Harnsberger (2001) ArticleTitleImage File Formats: Past, Present, and Future Radiographics 21 789–798 Occurrence Handle11353125
HyperTransport: http://www.hypertransport.org/, Accessed February 20, 2004
K Saito M Saito S Komatu et al. (2003) ArticleTitleReal-time four-dimensional imaging of the heart with multi-detector row CT Radiographics 23 E8–8
Grid Computing: http://www.gridcomputing.com/, Accessed February 20, 2004
P Avery (2002) ArticleTitleData grids: a new computational infrastructure for data-intensive science Philos Transact Ser A Math Phys Eng Sci 15;360 1191–1209
Pixar Company: http://www.pixar.com, Accessed February 20, 2004
A Rowe D Kalaitzopoulos M Osmond et al. (2003) ArticleTitleThe discovery net system for high throughput bioinformatics Bioinformatics 19 IssueIDSuppl 1 1225–1231 Occurrence Handle10.1093/bioinformatics/btg1031
L Cummings L Riley L Black et al. (2002) ArticleTitleGenomic BLAST: custom-defined virtual databases for complete and unfinished genomes FEMS Microbiol Lett 216 133–138 Occurrence Handle10.1016/S0378-1097(02)00955-2 Occurrence Handle1:CAS:528:DC%2BD38XosFCmtbk%3D Occurrence Handle12435493
Message Passing Interface: http://www.lam-mpi.org/, Accessed February 20, 2004
X-Grid: http://www.apple.com/acg/xgrid, Accessed February 20, 2004
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rosset, A., Spadola, L. & Ratib, O. OsiriX: An Open-Source Software for Navigating in Multidimensional DICOM Images. J Digit Imaging 17, 205–216 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-004-1014-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-004-1014-6