Abstract
Integration and display of results from multiple neuroimaging modalities [e.g. magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), magnetoencephalography, EEG] relies on display of a diverse range of data within a common, defined coordinate frame. DataViewer3D (DV3D) is a multi-modal imaging data visualization tool offering a cross-platform, open-source solution to simultaneous data overlay visualization requirements of imaging studies. While DV3D is primarily a visualization tool, the package allows an analysis approach where results from one imaging modality can guide comparative analysis of another modality in a single coordinate space. DV3D is built on Python, a dynamic object-oriented programming language with support for integration of modular toolkits, and development of cross-platform software for neuroimaging. DV3D harnesses the power of the Visualization Toolkit (VTK) for two-dimensional (2D) and 3D rendering, calling VTK's low level C++ functions from Python. Users interact with data via an intuitive interface that uses Python to bind wxWidgets, which in turn calls the user's operating system dialogs and graphical user interface tools. DV3D currently supports NIfTI-1, ANALYZE™ and DICOM formats for MRI data display (including statistical data overlay). Formats for other data types are supported. The modularity of DV3D and ease of use of Python allows rapid integration of additional format support and user development. DV3D has been tested on Mac OSX, RedHat Linux and Microsoft Windows XP. DV3D is offered for free download with an extensive set of tutorial resources and example data.
Highlights
This paper describes DataViewer3D (DV3D), a software package built with Python1 and designed and optimized to address many of the issues encountered when visualizing multi-modal neuroimaging data
IMPLEMENTING A Python FRAMEWORK Having outlined the key objectives for a new multi-modal neuroimaging data visualization tool, we can consider the implementation of the project
We previously described extracting a rough representation of the cortex by passing a base sMRI volume to the vtkContourFilter
Summary
DV3D allows users to integrate results from a number of different analysis packages, in a variety of formats and in an open-source, platform independent implementation. A metadata file describing the processes applied to a data set, its overlays, and dependent thresholds is potentially time-saving when dealing with the visualization of neuroimaging data sets Such a file could be shared with another researcher to ensure a consistent result when viewing the same input data. DV3D has been designed with an open-source, user community developed model in mind As such it is imperative that the package is built on a software framework that is accessible to a wide variety of users on a wide range of hardware platforms, extendible by non-specialist developers, intuitive to use, and well documented
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