ITK/Release Schedule

The next release is 3.18 scheduled for Jan 6 2010.

Release Life Cycle

Last period for adding classes and features

• New classes will be selected from good reviews from the Insight Journal
• New features and new methods can be added during this period.

Feature Freeze

• Increase code coverage
  • address any UNTESTED files
  • address files with code coverage lower than 80%
• Address Run-time memory issues
  • Purify reports
  • Valgrind reports

CVS Tagging

The repository is tagged by using two tags, one for the reference, and another for the branch.

Posting Tarballs

• Tarballs are posted to SourceForge
• Tarballs are linked from the ITK Download

Release 3.14 Schedule

Release Number	Start Date	End Date
Moving code from ITK Review Directory to final destination	March 15 2009	May 24 2009
Reviewing Insight Journal (IJ)	March 15 2009	May 15 2009
Selecting IJ papers	April 1 2009	May 15 2009
Bug triage	April 1 2009	April 7 2009
Moving IJ code into ITK Review Directory	April 1 2009	May 24 2009
Feature freeze, fixing tests, code coverage	May 25 2009	May 29 2009
CVS Tagging	May 30 2009	May 30, 2009
Testing tarballs	May 30 2009	May 30 2009
Posting tarballs	May 31 2009	May 31 2009

Insight Journal Papers to move to Review

Current suggested list:

Part A

• These two papers provide similar functionalities:
  • A Generalized Squared Euclidean Distance Transform with Voronoi Maps
  • Morphology with parabolic structuring elements
• A Novel Information-Theoretic Point-Set Measure Based on the Jensen-Havrda-Charvat-Tsallis Divergence(related to paper 317)
• Automatic Junction Detection for Tubular Structures
• Combining labeled images with ITK
  • Lorensen has started on this one.
• Computational Geometry Computation and KNN Segmentation in ITK
• Digital Topology
  • Lots of comments from Gaetan. He has already addressed many issues with the code. Be sure to use his updated code.
  • Sadely, I found some quite important problems while working on this code, like some non thread safe methods. Richard has started some similar work which may be less problematic. Glehmann 20:09, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
• Direct Fourier Tomographic Reconstruction Image-To-Image Filter
  • Wes Turner has downloaded this and is preparing it for addition to review.
• Exporting Contours to DICOM-RT Structure Set
• Fast BlockMatching Registration with Entropy-based Similarity
• Fast Marching Minimal Path Extraction in ITK
• Flux driven medial curve extraction
• Generating a Deformation Field from a Transform
  • Needs copyright clarification
  • This class has already been moved to review in July 2008 (cvs log)
• Go-Go Gabor Gadgetry
  • Lorensen has already downloaded this and is preparing for addition to Review
• Graph Cuts, Caveat Utilitor, and Euler's Bridges of Konigsberg(Verify Patent Status)(Siemens Patent)
• Gridding Graphic Graticules
  • Lorensen has already downloaded this and is preparing for addition to Review
• Add a combination of these two helper classes:
  • Helper class for initializing the grid parameters of a BSpline,Helper class for initializing the grid parameters of a BSpline deformable transform by using an image as reference
  • Helper classes for the BSplineDeformableTransform
• ITK Implementation Of The Minimum Error Image Thresholding Algorithm
• ITK Order K Distance Transform
• Image registration using the Morphon algorithm: an ITK implementation

Part B

• ImageNetworkReader: an ITK Class for Loading Images Across a Network
• Implementation of a 3D thinning algorithm
• Implementation of weighted Dijkstra’s shortest-path algorithm for n-D images
• Implementing the Automatic Generation of 3D Statistical Shape Models with ITK
• Improvements to the itk::KernelTransform and Subclasses(almost a bug fix)
• Incorporating Metric Flows and Sparse Jacobian Transformations in ITK
• Information-Theoretic Directly Manipulated Free-Form Deformation Labeled Point-Set Registration(Postpone for next release to allow for modification).(related to paper 304)
• Label object representation and manipulation with ITK (65 classes). Provides most of the features of A Label Geometry Image Filter for Multiple Object Measurement, but there are still a few ones not covered.
• Level Set Segmentation: Active Contours without edge (10~20 classes)(combine with paper 323) (Karthik)(Alex & Arnaud have newer code)
• Live-Wire-ing the Insight Toolkit with Intelligent Scissors (1~2 classes)
• LookAt Transform Initializer and Oblique Section Image Filter (1 class)
• Meeting Andy Warhol Somewhere Over the Rainbow: RGB Colormapping and ITK (1~2)(**)(Michel Audette)
• Microscopy Image Analysis: Blob Segmentation using Geodesic Active Contours (Check if it can be merged with the Lesion Sizing Toolkit).(Wes Turner)
• Non-negative matrix factorization framework for dimensionality reduction and unsupervised clustering(3 classes) (Wes Turner)
• Non-rigid Groupwise Registration using B-Spline Deformation Model
• Phase Correlation Method for ITK(~10 classes) (Wes Turner)
• Polar Transforms for ITK(1 class)
• Reader/Writer for Analyze Object Maps for ITK(4 classes)
• Run-Length Matrices For Texture Analysis
• Stochastic Fractal Dimension Image(~2 classes) (Michel Audette/Luis Ibanez)(DONE)
• itkEllipseBoundaryToImageFilter(1 class)(Michel Audette)
• level set segmentation using coupled active surfaces(Relates to paper 322) (Karthik)(Alex and Arnaud have newer code)
• Some extra image logical operations

Release 3.16 Schedule

Release Number	Start Date	End Date
Moving code from ITK Review Directory to final destination	June 15 2009	Aug 7 2009
Reviewing Insight Journal (IJ)	June 15 2009	July 31 2009
Selecting IJ papers	June 15 2009	July 15 2009
Bug triage	Aug 1 2009	Aug 15 2009
Moving IJ code into ITK Review Directory	June 15 2009	Aug 7 2009
Feature freeze, fixing tests, code coverage	Aug 8 2009	Sept 9 2009
CVS Tagging	Sept 9 2009	Sept 9, 2009
Testing tarballs	Sept 10 2009	Sept 10 2009
Posting tarballs	Sept 10 2009	Sept 10 2009

Insight Journal Papers to move to Review

• Label object representation and manipulation with ITK (65 classes). Provides most of the features of A Label Geometry Image Filter for Multiple Object Measurement, but there are still a few ones not covered.

Review Articles to be Moved

Current suggested list:

• itkTransformReader
  • (and associated factories)
• Multi-threaded Registration
• Consolidated Morphology
  • These classes need a code walk through to review Method names, especially internally used names. There are several that do not conform to ITK naming conventions. (e.g. itkBoxUtilities: setConnectivityEarlyBox
• Binary Functor Filters
  • AddConstant, DivideByConstant, MultiplyByConstant, SubtractConstantFrom

Release 3.18 Schedule

Release Number	Start Date	End Date
Moving code from ITK Review Directory to final destination	Oct 1 2009	Nov 15 2009
Reviewing Insight Journal (IJ)	Oct 1 2009	Nov 1 2009
Selecting IJ papers	Oct 15 2009	Nov 1 2009
Bug triage	Oct 1 2009	Oct 15 2009
Moving IJ code into ITK Review Directory	Nov 1 2009	Dec 14 2009
Feature freeze, fixing tests, code coverage	Dec 15 2009	Jan 8 2010
CVS Tagging	January 8 2010	January 8, 2010
Testing tarballs	January 9 2010	January 9 2010
Posting tarballs	January 10 2010	January 10 2010

Insight Journal papers to Move for ITK 3.18

• http://www.insight-journal.org/browse/publication/640
  • http://hdl.handle.net/10380/3053 N4ITK: "Nick's N3 ITK Implementation For MRI Bias Field Correction"
• http://www.insight-journal.org/browse/publication/698
  • http://hdl.handle.net/10380/3129 "An Optimized N-Dimensional Hough Filter for Detecting Spherical Image Objects"
• http://www.insight-journal.org/browse/publication/321
  • http://hdl.handle.net/1926/1531 "Microscopy Image Analysis: Blob Segmentation using Geodesic Active Contours"
• http://www.insight-journal.org/browse/publication/145
  • http://hdl.handle.net/1926/494 "Improvements to the itk::KernelTransform and Subclasses"

Check-list for Moving Code from IJ to Review and from Review

For IJ Articles To Review

• Responsible developer should add a review before moving into local copy of Review. Please provide authors with feedback regarding changes that were made to conform to ITK style/documentation etc.

For Adding Images to Input or Baseline

• Images should be SMALL.
  • The source tree is not an image database, but a source code repository.
  • Adding an image larger than 50Kb should be justified by a discussion in the Developers list
  • Make sure that you use the "cvs add -kb" option when adding binary files to the CVS repository.
• Regression images should not use Analyze format unless the test is for the AnalyzeImageIO and related classes.
• Images should use non-trivial Metadata.
  • Origin should be different form zeros
  • Spacing should be different from ones, and it should be anisotropic
  • Direction should be different from Identity

For Moving Code From Review

• At least one independent (other than contributor) should sign off on the API
• Coverage should be as close to 100% as possible.
  • and never lower than 90%.
  • For example, itkTransformIOBase.cxx is only at 63% coverage. Should be easily fixed by adding a Print() to one of the tests.

For All

• Check all comments for proper English
• Should pass KWStyle. IJ articles should be checked with KWStyle before checking into repository.
• Should pass PrintSelf. IJ articles should pass PrintSelf check before checking into repository.
• ITK_EXPORT should appear in each class definition. This triggers the PrintSelf checker.
• Replace itkGetMacro with itkGetConstMacro.
• Header file should contain Insight Journal citation
  • Using the "handle" link.
• Use vcl verions of all transcendental functions.
  • For example, itkGaborKernelFunction used sin() and cos() rather than vcl_sin() and vcl_cos().
• Progress should be present for all filters. Use itk::SimplerFilterWatcher to exercise progress and PrintSelfs.
• When appropriate, class should handle image directions. Tests should use non-default values for origin, spacing and dimension.
  • GaborImageSource did not provide methods to set/get directions.
• Regression tests names should when possible have the same name as the test.
• Exceptions should be descriptive and provide as much information as possible
• Member data should be private with access if required through Get methods.

Release History

• ITK Release History