View source for CaBIG.DICOM.Viewer

== Logistics ==
* August 20, 11am (EDT)
* Conference call
** Phone number: 1-800-704-9804
** Contact stephen.aylward@kitware.com for participants code.

== Attendees ==
* Ron Kikinis
* Eliot Siegel
* Larry Clarke
* Paul Mulhern
* Carl Jaffe
* Keyvan Farahani
* Bob Nordstrom
* Steve Pieper
* Stephen Aylward

== Background ==

=== Related Links ===
* [http://mircwiki.rsna.org/index.php?title=DICOM_Viewer MIRC DICOM Viewer]
* [http://www.na-mic.org/ NAMIC Website]
* [https://na-mic.org/w/images/d/d6/2007WS3DSlicer.ppt Radiology Workstation Module for Slicer3]
* [http://wiki.na-mic.org/Wiki/index.php/Projects/Slicer3/2007_Project_Week_Lightbox Lightbox in Slicer3]
* [http://www.slicer.org/ Slicer]

=== Initial Emails ===
 Subject:     FW: MIRC DICOM Viewer Question
 Date:     Sun, 5 Aug 2007 11:46:54 -0400
 From:     Mulhern, Paul <mulhern_paul@BAH.COM>
 Reply-To:     mulhern_paul@BAH.COM
 To:     CABIG_IMAGE-L@LIST.NIH.GOV
 Message from Eliot Siegel:
 
 Dear members of the imaging workspace:
 
 If you get a chance, I was wondering if you could do us a favor in
 support of our MIRC teaching file software.  We're hoping to add a free
 DICOM viewer to the MIRC teaching file software without having to
 develop one from scratch.  If you get a chance would you please check
 out John Perry's Wiki site and let me know if you have any ideas.  The
 Wiki page is http://mircwiki.rsna.org/index.php?title=DICOM_Viewer.
 Please let me know if you have any ideas.  Thanks so much in advance!
 
 Warm regards,
 Eliot


 From: Ron Kikinis MD
 Sent: Monday, August 06, 2007 7:33 AM
 To: Clarke, Laurence (NIH/NCI) [E]
 Subject: [Fwd: [Fwd: FW: MIRC DICOM Viewer Question]] 
 
 Larry,
 
 There is a lot of potential leverage in improving the interoperability
 between Slicer and CaBIG (e.g. for NCIGT, NAMIC and NAC efforts). Slicer
 is already listed as a dicom viewer for NCIA (as you know) and we have a
 tutorial on how to use the current product release of slicer for viewing
 NCIA images (www.slicer.org).
 
 The new version of slicer (Slicer3) allows a closer integration with the
 CaBIG framework with relatively little incremental effort. for that
 version, we are already working on a first generation of a radiology
 centric display.
 
 Has there been any change in the procedures or do I just write an email
 to Eliot?
 
 Ron

=== caBIG Initiative ===

From http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-07-426.html

caBIG™ provides a different infrastructure for tool and data federation than BIRN does.  caBIG™ has developed strategic infrastructure that depends on open source software and on using commercial software where appropriate to provide interoperability, to connect users and tools through a grid infrastructure, and to provide researchers with grid-enabled applications.  The software tools support basic, clinical, and translational research functions.  It is expected that providing the capability for researchers to use caBIG-enabled applications will remove the technological barriers to sharing data on the grid.  Ultimately, the goal of caBIG™ is to connect the research community from bench scientists to clinical researchers and on to the Food and Drug Administration.  A key part of the caBIG™ strategy is to use well-defined standards for data exchange and to develop a core vocabulary so that results from multiple experiments or data streams can be compared.  caBIG™ tools and infrastructure components are freely available on the caBIG™ web site (https://caBIG.nci.nih.gov).

The caBIG™ interfaces cover four distinct areas: programming and messaging interfaces, information models, vocabularies/ontologies and terminologies, and data elements. To assist developers that wish to build systems that can leverage this infrastructure, the caBIG™ Compatibility Guidelines (https://cabig.nci.nih.gov/guidelines_documentation/ ) have been created.  The guidelines recognize four levels of maturity, based on the degree of interoperability that the system can support starting with Legacy (not interoperable) through Bronze, Silver and Gold (fully interoperable using the caBIG™ infrastructure). This FOA is targeted at systems that can be made interoperable at the “Gold” maturity level, so that they can have the broadest benefit to the research community.

Gold level information systems interoperate using the caGrid infrastructure (https://cabig.nci.nih.gov/workspaces/Architecture/caGrid/ ) that provides the formalized grid architecture and specifications for this level of interoperability. The caGrid infrastructure is layered on existing grid technologies such as Globus Toolkit and leverage several existing middleware components including the National Cancer Institute Center for Bioinformatics (NCICB) caCORE infrastructure (http://ncicb.nci.nih.gov/NCICB/infrastructure/cacore_overview/ ) and the Ohio State University Mobius middleware.  The caGrid infrastructure contains many innovative features augmenting these core components. These features include a robust grid security infrastructure, innovative metadata management services and workflow management systems for service orchestration.  The caGrid distribution also includes an integrated development environment (IDE) tool called Introduce, which simplifies the construction of new “Gold” compatible systems.  The use of caGrid infrastructure and tools does not require any specialized hardware, and is supported on most commonly available platforms.

There are two key registration steps that must be undertaken for a system to become part of caGrid.  The first step involves registration of an information model and associated semantic annotations, expressed in the Unified Modeling Language (UML), into the Cancer Data Standards Repository, or caDSR (http://ncicb.nci.nih.gov/NCICB/infrastructure/cacore_overview/cadsr ).  The caDSR is a metadata registry where all caBIG data semantics are maintained and referenced.   The caDSR derives its semantics from ontology and terminology sources that are approved for use in caBIG, but is not itself an ontology management system.  Rather, it is a metadata registry for caBIG information models.  Tools and live support are available to assist with UML model registration.   Once an information model is registered, the system can then be added to the actual caGrid data and analysis federation.  This requires that the system be exposed as a "service" on caGrid using the Introduce tool referred to above. Introduce assists with the process of wrapping and registering a service with the main caGrid Index Service registry.

Once registered, a service becomes available to all authorized users of caGrid.  Currently available caGrid services can be found on a prototype caGrid portal site, still under development, which can be found here: http://cagrid-portal.nci.nih.gov/portal .  In addition to the portal, more sophisticated scientific research applications that leverage caGrid are also under development.