Projects/Slicer3/2007 Project Week Lego Mindstorms dissemination for IGT

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Home < Projects < Slicer3 < 2007 Project Week Lego Mindstorms dissemination for IGT
LegoMindstorms Slicer3.jpg


Key Investigators

  • Danielle Pace
  • NA-MIC Collaborators: Katie Hayes, Michael Halle, Tauseef Rehman, Marco Ruiz


Objective

The goal of this project is to provide a highly accessible tool that allows users to assess whether Slicer 3 meets their needs. In order to truly evaluate open-source IGT software, users must be able to experiment with the software in a hands-on fashion. Unfortunately, an accessible means of doing so is often not provided with open-source IGT software, as users' only options are usually trying out the software without any physical devices or purchasing expensive tracking devices and/or phantoms.

This project uses Lego Mindstorms, an inexpensive robotics kit, to provide an assessment tool and tutorial for Slicer 3. The user will get a feel for the capabilities of Slicer 3 by setting up and executing a simulated needle biopsy using the robot.

Approach, Plan

Advancement will be made in this ongoing summer project with the following three goals in mind:

1) Wrap up programming a means for communication between Slicer 3 and the Lego Mindstorms robot over USB.

2) Wrap up hierarchical modelling to calculate the final needle position given the current rotation of the three motors.

3) Start and finish programming the Slicer 3 module GUI.


Progress

1) USB communication coding finished.

2) Hierarchical modelling almost finished as of Friday morning and will be finished by the end of the week.

3) Slicer 3 GUI finished (see example screenshot below):

LegoGUIScreenshot.png




Notes & Suggestions

Contribute input here:


References