In-vivo Imaging Middleware

The IVI Middleware includes three major objectives: DICOM-Grid Interoperability to facilitate exchange of image data between existing DICOM PACS and grid entities, efficient transport of large amount of binary image data, and Service Development Kit to facilitate development and deployment of image related grid services. The gridIMAGE application developed using the IVI middleware allows geographically dispersed image review and analysis, with the driving use cases being Lung Cancer Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD), multiple human reviews of Lung CT cases, PET-CT image fusion, and pathology image analysis. gridIMAGE utilizes the functionalities implemented in the IVI Middleware and caGrid toolkit, and ties together grid services that expose resources such as image repositories, XML databases, as well as analytical capabilities provided by commercial CAD packages, MatLab, and IDL-based image analysis applications. We have also developed a second application called VirtualPACS, which allows a radiologists to use a DICOM workstation to access PACS systems exposed on caGrid.