A novel visualizer of medical images by integrating an extensible plugin framework

Abstract

The use of medical imaging for the diagnosis and, to a lesser extent, the prognosis and treatment of disease, is a common practice in modern medicine. Consequently, the need has arisen to develop applications that combine the ability to visualize digital medical images with the features required by clinical personnel in order to manage them. A number of medical image viewers are currently available, but nearly all of them are oriented towards visualizing and managing a single study of a patient, which limits the analysis of the expert. This paper introduces a novel application that contains the basic functionality required for common medical image analysis and which may be extended by a plug-in system with new features that could be demanded in the future. The application also makes it possible to visualize and analyze several studies at the same time, completely independently, increasing the accuracy of the analysis and facilitating the work of experts. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.