INTERACTIVE MEDICAL IMAGE ANALYSIS WORKSTATION

THE RESULT OF THIS PHASE I EFFORT WILL BE A DETAILED PLAN TO SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASE THE SPEED AND, HENCE, THE INTERACTIVITY OF ANALYZE, AN ALREADY USEFUL MEDICAL IMAGE ANALYSIS SYSTEM. ANALYZE IS A SOFTWARE SYSTEM FOR THE ANALYSIS OF MEDICAL IMAGES, DEVELOPED AT MAYO FOUNDATION'S BIOTECHNOLOGY COMPUTER RESOURCE. INCREASED PERFORMANCE WILL BE ACHIEVED BY IMPLEMENTING SELECTED PORTIONS OF ANALYZE ON A MULTIPLE PROCESSING ELEMENT (PE) ENVIRONMENT. FUNCTIONS OF ANALYZE FOR WHICH DECREASED IMAGE GENERATION TIME IS IMPORTANT, SUCH AS VOLUME RENDERING WILL BE SELECTED. NEXT, DETAILED PLANS WILL BE GENERATED TO PORT THE RELEVANT PORTIONS OF THE EXISTING CODE IN ANALYZE TO THE MULTIPLE PE ENVIRONMENT. THE IMPLEMENTATION WILL USE THE LINDA KERNAL STRATEGY WHICH ALLOWS AN ARBITRARY NUMBER OF PES TO BE UTILIZED. THIS STRATEGY INSURES THAT THE PERFORMANCE OF ANY WORKSTATION USING THE MULTIPLE PE ARCHITECTURE CAN BE INCREASED BY SIMPLY INCREASING THE NUMBER OF PES. THE LONG TERM OBJECTIVE OF THIS PROJECT IN PHASE II IS TO PRODUCE MULTIPLE PE BASED CIRCUIT BOARDS SUITABLE FOR INCORPORATION INTO EXISTING UNIX-BASED IMAGING WORKSTATIONS AND THE ASSOCIATED VERSION OF ANALYZE TO OPERATE IN THIS ENVIRONMENT. THIS APPROACH WILL LEAD TO INCREASE THE UTILITY OF ANALYZE BY EXTENDING THE OPERATIONAL RANGE OF ANALYZE TO INCLUDE LARGER DATASETS WHILE MINIMIZING THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SOFTWARE. THIS SCHEME WILL ALSO ALLOW FOR A HIGH PERFORMANCE OPERATION OF ANALYZE ON LOWER PERFORMANCE WORKSTATIONS AND POTENTIALLY EVEN PERSONAL COMPUTERS.