title: The image-guided surgery toolkit IGSTK: an open source C++ software toolkit.
abstract: This paper presents an overview of the image-guided surgery toolkit (IGSTK). IGSTK is an open source C++ software library that provides the basic components needed to develop image-guided surgery applications. It is intended for fast prototyping and development of image-guided surgery applications. The toolkit was developed through a collaboration between academic and industry partners. Because IGSTK was designed for safety-critical applications, the development team has adopted lightweight software processes that emphasizes safety and robustness while, at the same time, supporting geographically separated developers. A software process that is philosophically similar to agile software methods was adopted emphasizing iterative, incremental, and test-driven development principles. The guiding principle in the architecture design of IGSTK is patient safety. The IGSTK team implemented a component-based architecture and used state machine software design methodologies to improve the reliability and safety of the components. Every IGSTK component has a well-defined set of features that are governed by state machines. The state machine ensures that the component is always in a valid state and that all state transitions are valid and meaningful. Realizing that the continued success and viability of an open source toolkit depends on a strong user community, the IGSTK team is following several key strategies to build an active user community. These include maintaining a users and developers' mailing list, providing documentation (application programming interface reference document and book), presenting demonstration applications, and delivering tutorial sessions at relevant scientific conferences.
authors: Kitware Inc., Clifton Park, NY 12065, USA. andinet.enqu@kitware.com
authors: Andinet
authors: A
authors: Enquobahrie
authors: Patrick
authors: P
authors: Cheng
authors: Kevin
authors: K
authors: Gary
authors: Luis
authors: L
authors: Ibanez
authors: David
authors: D
authors: Gobbi
authors: Frank
authors: F
authors: Lindseth
authors: Ziv
authors: Z
authors: Yaniv
authors: Stephen
authors: S
authors: Aylward
authors: Julien
authors: J
authors: Jomier
authors: Kevin
authors: K
authors: Cleary
mesh_terms: D003199:Computer Systems; D003626:Data Display; D003628:Database Management Systems; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D012449:Safety; D012984:Software; D012985:Software Design; D012986:Software Validation; D025321:Surgery, Computer-Assisted; D018511:Systems Integration; D014584:User-Computer Interface
references: Acta Neurochir (Wien). 2007;149(4):365-78
references: 17308976