Software for Practical Annotation and Exchange of Virtual Anatomy

解剖学的虚拟表示对于解释健康中的生理功能是普遍存在的， 疾病虽然解剖学的计算描述依赖于各种各样的基于图像和CAD的方法， 格式，基于网格的方法已经变得越来越重要，以协助临床护理，医疗设备 开发、增材制造和计算模拟。仅仅解剖学几何结构并不是 没有适当的注释就一定有用。注释可以描述解剖关系 以及器官之间的生理相互作用，以及元数据的封装。它也可以捕捉疾病 提供诊断和预后的相关信息。可以分配属性，即，生理状态，作为 字段变量跨越对象的空间域，可以被存储。对虚拟解剖的新需求是 用于统一解剖学计算表示的通用和专用注释的软件 对象软件应包括自动注释功能，即，依靠解剖学的分类 关系和交互式注释，这两者都提高了用户标记解剖结构的效率 对象该软件还应促进格式之间的交流，以增强生物医学界的能力 并对虚拟解剖结构进行再利用和进一步注释。目前，存储和交换的格式 解剖学数据非常零散。许多都是为特定目的而设计的，并且仅容纳 注释容量的子集。标准提案数量有限，大多数是专门的 等待社区的关注为了满足这些未满足的需求，我们提出了一个新的软件套件， 通过利用基于网格的表示进行虚拟解剖的实用注释和交换， 支持基于图像和CAD的格式。该项目将通过三个具体目标来实现。第一、 将开发一个多平台软件库作为基础。第二，高级应用程序接口， 将开发图形用户界面和插件基础设施。这些组件将增加 该软件的可用性潜力，也将提供使用插件扩展的能力。 INS将由研究人员开发，以支持各种解剖数据交换格式。 最后，来自肌肉骨骼、心血管和神经系统领域的用例将展示 软件在广泛的生物医学学科中的普遍适用性， 预期注释和交换约定。克利夫兰诊所的调查人员将作为 应用科学家团队为软件开发提供规范，并进行案例研究。 The Kitware，Inc.集团将利用敏捷的软件开发工作流程来交付软件组件。 免费和开源的实现将确保与潜在用户和开发人员的最大参与 社区.简而言之，该项目将产生一个经过功能评估和科学验证的软件 软件包，可高效地处理各种生物医学应用的虚拟解剖。

Virtual representations of anatomy are ubiquitous for interpretation of physiological function in health and disease. While computational description of anatomy have relied on a diverse array of image-based and CAD formats, mesh-based approaches have become increasingly important to assist clinical care, medical device development, additive manufacturing, and computational simulations. Anatomical geometry alone is not necessarily useful without appropriate annotation. Annotation enables descriptions of anatomical relationships and physiological interactions between organs, and encapsulation of metadata. It can also capture disease related information for diagnosis and prognosis. Properties can be assigned, i.e., the physiological state, as a field variable across the object’s spatial domain, can be stored. An emerging need for virtual anatomy is software to unify general purpose and specialized annotation of computational representations of anatomical objects. The software should include features for automated annotation, i.e., relying on taxonomy of anatomical relationships, and for interactive annotation, both of which increase users’ efficiency to markup anatomical objects. The software should also facilitate exchange between formats to empower the biomedical community with reuse and further annotation of virtual anatomies. At the moment, formats to store and exchange anatomical data are widely fragmented. Many are designed for specific purposes and accommodate only a subset of annotation capacity. There are a limited number of standards proposals, which are mostly specialized and awaiting traction in the community. To fulfill these unmet needs, we propose a novel software suite for pragmatic annotation and exchange of virtual anatomy by leveraging mesh-based representations and supporting image- and CAD-based formats. The project will be accomplished through three specific aims. First, a multi-platform software library will be developed as a foundation. Second, a high level application interface, a graphical user interface, and a plug-in infrastructure will be developed. These components will increase the usability potential of the software and will also provide the capacity for extensions using plug-ins. Various plug- ins will be developed by the investigators to support a large variety of anatomical data exchange formats. Finally, use cases from musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and neurological domains will demonstrate the software’s general applicability in a wide range of biomedical disciplines and curate sample data sets to guide prospective annotation and exchange conventions. The Cleveland Clinic investigators will act as the application scientist team to provide specifications for software development and to implement case studies. The Kitware, Inc. group will utilize an agile software development workflow to deliver software components. Free and open source implementation will ensure utmost engagement with the prospective user and developer communities. In a nutshell, the project will result in a functionally evaluated and scientifically validated software package to efficiently work on virtual anatomy for a diverse range of biomedical applications.