Updated: Apr 27, 1999
This is the most recent structured information on this project. Complementary data can be found on previous documents
IAEVA II An Internet Service for fast viewing and manipulation of 3D models of human pathologies

Overview

IAEVA II is aimed at developing an Internet Service for viewing, consulting, manipulating and flying-through on three-dimensional models of human pathologies and will set up all the necessary commercial infrastructures in order to ensure continuation and enhancing of the Service after Project end.
IAEVA II is an extension of the IAEVA (HC1025) project and, as such, receives direct input from IAEVA with respect to basic system architecture, user requirements, software tools, and consortium coherence. To the main objectives of  IAEVA, IAEVA II adds new scientific, clinical, industrial and commercial interests, aiming at scientific promotion and clinical decisions support on the various applications of the new  technologies based on 3D Radiological Imaging, including “Virtual Endoscopy”.
IAEVA II will develop improved transmission and rendering of three-dimensional models of human pathologies (constructed mainly from MRI and CT slices), enhanced manipulation and fly-through functionality of the models, as well as generation of animation sequences on 3D Images manipulations and fly-throughs. The system will provide the end users with advanced imaging capabilities, such as models derived from multi-modal inputs (CT and MRI) and stereoscopic display, and sophisticated features, such as wavelets and model warping, to speed up transmission times. In addition to interactive 3D applications, the Service will provide interactive platforms for tele-medicine applications aimed at information exchange and/or counselling between users and for educational applications, incorporating learning monitoring and assessment. The service will be offered  on the WEB servers of  two leading Internet Service Providers for Medicine. The models and animation sequences and the tele-medicine and educational applications will be retrieved and/or utilised through Internet/Intranet by standard browser software and on standard PC platforms
The IAEVA-II Consortium is based on all the original Partners, who provide continuity for successful partnership coherence, technological and academic/educational approaches and results of first IAEVA Project, with the inclusion of new Partners, who enhance scientific, clinical, industrial and commercial strength and support. They are: 4 leading European Radiological Centres, (who will provide the contents which are necessary for the operational commencement  of the service), 2 leading Internet Service Providers for Medicine and 1 major  Medical Imaging Systems Manufacturer.
Exploitation plans will be developed in two phases: a preliminary one after 6 months and a final one at the end of the Project.

Purpose and objectives

IAEVA II purpose is to satisfy user needs summarised below:

Medical professionals, both in Hospital environments and in private environments, need:
Þ    Reference Anatomy 3D Models Library on peculiar syndromes and diagnostic findings (to be continuously updated)
Þ    Reference Animation Sequences on Radiological 3D Images manipulations (e.g. Virtual Endoscopy) Library on normal and pathological conditions (to be continuously updated)
Þ    Telematics Support for scientific and clinical information exchange and/or counselling
Þ    Remote tutoring and learning monitoring/assessment for Continuing Education programs

Medical students, in University environments, but also using home access to Internet, need:
-       Tutorial Anatomy 3D Models Library on normal and pathological conditions (to be periodically updated)
-       Tutorial Animation Sequences on Radiological 3D Images manipulations Library on normal and pathological conditions (to be periodically updated)
-       Remote tutoring and learning monitoring/assessment for Primary Teaching programs

The following guidelines have been identified:

General requirements:
Þ    Implementation  of educational applications of Anatomy 3D Models and Radiological 3D Images manipulations Animation Sequences Libraries and of Remote tutoring and learning monitoring/assessment
Þ    Access to Radiological Anatomy 3D Models and access to related telematics Support for diagnostic and clinical practice
Þ    Access to Animation Sequences on Radiological 3D Images manipulations (e.g. Virtual Endoscopy) Reference cases and access to related telematics Support for diagnostic and clinical practice

Imaging requirements:
Þ    Visualisation of 3D models and 2D slices as well as full interactivity on 3D models (zooming, panning, scrolling, orthogonal dissection and fly-through)
Þ    3D stereoscopic visualisation and oblique user-selectable cross sections

Informative support require-ments:
·       Access  to all available clinical and technical data associated to the diagnostic examination
·       Internet Bulletin Board with Q&A for individual pathologies and scientific/clinical information exchange, especially on Virtual Endoscopy practice
·       Compilation and/or support of tutorial lessons on the pathologies involved and of Study Cases, aimed at both primary teaching for medical students and continuing education for medical professionals
·       Support of medical groups for scientific and clinical information exchange and/or counselling by audio-conferencing and by video-conferencing

The objective of IAEVA-II is the design and implementation of  a number of synergetic applications that aim in the incorporation of 3D models of human organs into electronic medical know-how dissemination systems. The platform that has been chosen is the Internet and in order for the results of the project to achieve the highest penetration to the medical society, the two largest WEB medical information Providers in Europe have been included in the consortium. The service that will be initiated near the end of the project will be set up in each Provider’s platform and this means immediate access to the service from their existing clientele.
The service will provide a highly interactive environment for retrieving / visualising and manipulating 3D human organ reconstruction. In addition virtual endoscopy sequences will be offered by the service in the form of computer animation and standard digital movies (MPEG and AVI). The network infrastructure for providing the service will be based on existing infrastructure that the two publishers offer. Tools for extending the scope of the project towards on-going education of medical professionals will also be developed so that 3D models can be used in conjunction with existing commercial publishing tools on the Web. It is anticipated that the publishing of off-line electronic titles will be a spin-off product that will be pursued with the publishers of the consortium.
The primary target of the project is to start service commercial operation immediately after the termination of the project and to create revenue for the data provider (radiological centres), on one hand, so that the database will continue to expand and for the publishers, on the other hand, so that the maintenance of the service can remain within the existing publishers platforms. It is anticipated to have the service in commercial operation by January 2000 with an initial volume of above 1000 cases
The participation of  two main commercial European Internet providers (Euromultimedia and Health On-Line Service) ensures the highest possible ease of access to to IAEVA-II service. This is due to the fact that the data produced by the consortium will reside on the existing platforms of the publishers and not in a new platform. Therefore, the existing clientele of the two publishers will have usual access response times to the service.

Results

It has been planned that the Data Providers, i.e. Radiological Data and 3D Models producing Medical Partners, , will altogether create about 1000 cases. The files will normally have sizes below 10 Mbytes (including wavelet compressed VRML model and the relevant pathology documentation by animation sequences and  a selection of the original CT/MRI slices),so maximum IAEVA II Demonstrator Database size is expected to be about 10 GBytes.
These cases will be of high quality emphasising particular pathologies. Each pathology will be associated with textual information that will be structured in a meaningful way in order to facilitate searches based on standard categories as they appear in SNOMED, ULMS e.t.a. The proposed system will be based on the philosophy of IAEVA which is full interactivity to the highest degree by allowing users to manipulate the models in the most fruitful way and extract information in a variety of ways.
Response times will be equivalent to current response times of the services of the two providers.
File Transfer times can be reduced to few seconds by using the Internet by Satellite file downloads and software compression techniques.
The demonstrator of the proposed system will consists of four operational units:
-         a on-line database of 3D models with associated textual information that reside on the publishers platforms and will be available through their WEB servers. The volume of the database will be over 1000 cases.
-         tools for maintaining the access and charging fees of the site.
-         plug-ins for viewing and manipulating 3D models of human organs for Netscape  and Microsoft Explorer since these are the two major browsers in the market

The operational scenario is that users will be able to access the IAEVA service if they possess:
-         Internet access through an Internet Service Provider
-         the appropriate IAEVA plug-in for the browser that he is using, which can be download by the publishers’ server
-     a valid access code for site accounting purposes

List of deliverables

Year 1

- Description of Users’ Perspective(2/R)
- Market Survey(2/R)
- Q.A. Plan(5/R)
- State of the Art, Tools Selection and Algorithmic Design(3/R)
- System Specifications and Detailed Design Specifications(5/R)
- Preliminary Exploitation Plan and Business Plan(6/R)
- First release of the IMP software(11/R)
- First release of the IMV software(11/R)
- Extended CGI(11/R)
- First Release of SVG Module(11/R)
- First Release of SAG Module(11/R)
- First Release of VHL(11/R)
- First Release of BB(11/R)
- Educational material(11/R)
- Preliminary Digitised Raw Data Archive(11/R)
- Recommendations on the 1^st  release of IMP, IMV(12/R)
- Recommendations on the 1^st  release of VHL and BB(12/R)
- Recommendations on the 1^st  release of SAG and SVG(12/R)

Year 2

- Second  release of IMP, IMV, VHL and  BB (16/R)
- Second  release of SAG and SVG (16/R)
- Recommendations on the 2^nd  release of IMP, IMV, BB, VHL, SAG and SVG (17/R)
- Third  release of IMP, IMV, VHL, BB (20/R)
- Third  release of SAG and SVG (20/R)
- EMM Service Prototype (21/P)
- HOS Service Prototype (21/P)
- Dissemination Activities Summary Report  (22/P)
- Digitised Raw Data Archive (22/P)
- Solid Models and Virtual Endoscopy Animations Database (22/P)
- Service Monitoring and Functional Performance and Data Quality Assessment Results (23/R)
- Detailed Exploitation Plan and Business Plan (22/R)
- Final Report (23/R)

List of participants

Dr.Ing. Giuliano Salcito
CITEC   S.p.A.
Via Alessandro Farnese 3
00192 Rome
Italy
Tel: +39/6/3216693/+39/338/7247545
Fax: +39/6/36000949
E-mail : gsalcito@mail.nexus.it

Dr. Nickos Vasilonikolidakis
Neuroware Ltd
24 Kofidou Str
142 31 Athens
Greece
Tel: +30/1/2715-672
Fax: +30/1/2719-943
E-mail : nikvas@neuro.ath.forthnet.gr

Dr. Gordon Clapworthy
De Montfort University  - Department of Computer & Information Sciences
Hammerwood Gate
Kents Hill
Milton Keynes
MK7  6HP - Buckinghamshire
UK
Tel: +44/1908/834931
Fax: +44/1908/834948
E-mail : gc@dmu.ac.uk
http://www.dmu.ac.uk/

Prof. Andrew Todd-Pokropek
Department of Physics and Radiology - Institute of Child
Health - University College London
Gower Street, London
WC1E 6BT
UK
Tel: + 44 171 209 6461/+ 44 171 209 6262
Fax: + 44 171 209 6269
E-mail : a.todd@ucl.ac.uk
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/

Dr. Panos Soupos
Byte Computer S.A
8 El. Venizelou
176 76 Athens
Greece
Tel: +30/1/9241728
Fax: +30/1/9244084
E-mail : psoupos@byte.gr
WWW Site: http://www.byte.gr/

Prof. Christos Kittas
University of Athens, Dept. of Histology and Embryology
75 Mikras Asias Str
116 10 Athens
Greece
Tel: +30/1/7796425
Fax: +30/1/7790353
E-mail : ckittas@atlas.uoa.gr

Dipl.-Ing. Rudolf Eckert
Siemens Ag Medical Engineering - Postprocessing Workstations
Henkestraße 127
91052 Erlangen
Deutschland
Tel: +49-9191-188157
Fax: +49-9191-189798
E-mail : rudolf.eckert@med.siemens.de
WWW Site: http://w2.siemens.de/med/e/rca/research.html

Prof. Roberto Passariello
Department of Radiology - II Chair - Policlinico Umberto I
University Of Rome  “La Sapienza”
Viale Regina Elena 324
00161 Rome
Italy
Tel: +39/6/4455602
Fax: +39/6/490243
E-mail : passariello@axrma.uniroma1.it

Dr. Michele Crudele
Libero Istituto Universitario Campus Bio-Medico
Via Longoni 83
00155 Rome
Italy
Tel: +39/6/22541360
Fax: +39/6/22541456
E-mail : crudele@liucbm.it
WWW Site: http://www.liucbm.it/

Prof.Dr. Marleen Smet
Department Of Radiology - University Hospitals Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Herestraat 49
3000 Leuven
Belgium
Tel: +32 16 34 37 82
Fax: +32 16 34 37 65
E-mail : marleen.smet@uz.kuleuven.ac.be

Dr. Bogdan von Rueckmann
Institute for Diagnostic Radiology, Großhadern Hospital, University of Munich
Marchioninistraße 15
81377 Munich
Deutschland
Tel: + 49/89/7095-3620
Fax: + 49/89/7095-8832
E-mail : bogdan.von.rueckmann@ikra.med.uni-muenchen.de

Dr. Jean-Claude Kurdziel
Emm Euromultimedia Sa
Avenue De La Faiencerie , 10
1510 Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Tel: +352/44116284
Fax: +352/454844
E-mail : bogdan.von.rueckmann@ikra.med.uni-muenchen.de
WWW Site: http://emmsa.com/products.html

Thomas Frank
Hos Multimedica Online Service Gmbh
Schlüterstr. 39
10629 Berlin 
Deutschland
Tel: +49 30 8842 9331
Fax: +49 30 8842 9340
E-mail : tf@bsmedic.de
WWW Site: http://bsmedic.de/

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