[vtkusers] Help with resources

[Sean McInerney]

Mackenzie,

   My bias is towards vtkFLTK for the GUI ... I'm the author. There are 
lots of examples that demonstrate how to use the library as well as how 
to set up a project to use vtkFLTK using the CMake build system.

   <http://vtkfltk.sourceforge.net/>

   There is also Charl Botha's vtkFlRenderWindowInteractor as used by 
many of the ITK examples (also FLTK, but a different approach).

   As far as animation goes ... it's too bad the dataset that you are 
using is deceased. Having a scans of a lung fully deflated, fully 
inflated, and at rest would be useful. You could produce warp 
transform(s) to animate between them. From the visible human data you 
will likely have to make some arbitrary decisions about how the lung 
changes in shape as it changes in volume and then warp between 
calculated target volumes ... I would assume that the data were acquired 
"at rest" ;-)

-Sean

Luis Ibanez wrote:
> Hi Mac,
> 
> Welcome to ITK and VTK!
> 
> Here are some answers to your questions:
> 
> 1) VTK is a visualization toolkit
> ITK is an image processing and analysis toolkit
> 
> For an application like the one you are interested, you probably
> want to combine both toolkits. VTK will provide functionalities
> for visualizing of your models as well as the input images, while
> ITK can be used for image segmentation and image registration.
> Both toolkits work well together in an integrated environment.
> 
> You will have to decide what to use for managing the GUI
> of your application, typical options are : FLTK, Qt, wxWindows
> MFC, Java, and Tcl. If time is a premium, you probably want
> to go for FLTK.
> 
> You are strongly encouraged to follow the tutorial sessions
> 
> http://www.itk.org/HTML/Tutorials
> 
> where you will find abundant details regarding the installation
> and combined use of ITK and VTK.
> 
> You are also encouraged to look at the ITK SoftwareGuide
> 
> http://www.itk.org/ItkSoftwareGuide.pdf
> 
> 
> 2) Representing your model as a Mesh seems to be a good option.
> You will find classes for representing Meshes both in ITK and
> VTK. Examples on how to convert an ITK mesh into a VTK
> one are available as part of the InsightApplications download.
> 
> 
> 3) VTK is a higher level layer on top of OpenGL. You will
> save a lot of time by using VTK instead of programming
> directly with OpenGL where you have to work with low
> level primitives such as points and lines.
> 
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> Luis
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------
> Mackenzie L. Cowell wrote:
> 
>> Hi all -
>>
>> I'm a summer intern at the arctic region supercomputing center in
>> Fairbanks, Alaska, and I'm working on a project to model human
>> respiration.  The goal of the project is to generate a 3D model of the
>> human lung from the Visible Human dataset, and to animate that lung in a
>> realistic way given certain airflow measurements taken from patients in a
>> hospital.
>>
>> The project is just beginning, and after a little research, it's become
>> clear the VTK and ITK might be extremely useful tools for what we want to
>> do; thus, we were hoping to solicit you all for answers to a couple
>> general questions that will help define our project's direction over the
>> next few months.
>>
>> 1. None of us have used any kitware products before, but we're leaning
>> towards the use of the Insight Toolkit (ITK) for the generation of the
>> lung model.  Do any of you know how ITK is different from VTK, if and how
>> they work together, and which would be more appropriate for us to use in
>> the generation of the lung model?
>>
>> 2. Keeping in mind that we eventually want to be able to deform and
>> animate our model of the lung (in response to airflow data), what 
>> would be
>> an appropriate format for the model?  It seems like some representations
>> of points in space would lend themselves more easily to deformation and
>> whatnot then others - what do you think?
>>
>> 3. Originally, we were planning on rendering the lung in openGL, and
>> writing a C++ program to deform it somehow.  However, if VTK has the
>> capabilities to animate, we want to use them.  Would it be possible to 
>> use
>> VTK to manipulate the lung model to create the animation?
>>
>>
>> Thanks for taking the time to read this.  We really appreciate your
>> responses - each one of them is a small contribution to the success of 
>> our
>> project.
>>
>> -thanks again,
>> Mac Cowell
>> ARSC summer intern
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> 
> 
> 
> 
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