Retinal Image Management System (RIMS)

ABSTRACT: Retinal damage is a debilitating condition, which, if left untreated, can lead to blindness. This condition is widespread and has many causes, ranging from accidental exposure to environmental dangers, to complications of disease such as diabetes (diabetic retinopathy), normal complications of aging (macular degeneration) or intentional damage from lasers. Modern retinal diagnostic and monitoring techniques allow for the collection of multiple imaging modalities targeting different retinal characteristics and pathology/anatomy presentations. However, image analysis and visualization techniques have not kept up with improvements in the imaging modalities requiring clinicians and researchers to continue to mentally register the different images together in search of new discoveries. In this proposal, Kitware and DualAlign are collaborating to improve retinal image research and diagnosis. Using their combined expertise in retinal image registration, analysis, parallel computing, software engineering and algorithm validation, the companies will implement the Retinal Image Management System (RIMS) for the synthesis and exploration of multimodality fusion and image mosaic generation. The system will enable multimodality analysis; will use parallel processing to limit computation time; and leverage existing open source resources for image preprocessing, post registration analysis, and visualization. BENEFIT: Although great strides have been made with advances in the technological fields of ocular imaging and visual functional testing as independent approaches for the investigation of ocular pathophysiology, no software system currently exists today that addresses all required aspects of a complete, fully functional system, one that incorporates retinal image data management, advanced preprocessing algorithms, difference imaging over time, registration and fusion of disparate retinal images, and parallel processing schemes to speed up the computationally intensive image data analysis; all of which are integrated with an intuitive web-enabled GUI to enable experts to share retinal image data for analysis and viewing. Therefore, there is a unique opportunity for innovation in this area. This need will be addressed with the proposed Retinal Imaging Management System (RIMS), a software platform that embraces leading edge retinal image analysis techniques, as well as improving on the current state-of-the-art retinal imaging tools being used today. The strategy for the work proposed here is to build an open platform, which will generate future business opportunities and accelerate the adoption of the technology. At the same time, DualAlign will develop, market and sell a proprietary, high-performance registration module that will be sold as a plug in component to the open platform. This will enable DualAlign to target the 4,500 retinal specialists in the U.S. today and the multitude of retinal specialists world-wide that could augment their existing systems with our proposed imaging platform. Together Kitware and DualAlign will offer an integration and installation service to potential customers, addressing both the DoD and commercial markets.