drannala@neuro.usc.edu (Diane R Annala) (06/13/88)
As part of the new neuroscience program at USC, I am beginning to assemble the
tools necessary to do three dimensional solids modeling of approximately 1500
nested internal anatomical structures of human, rabbit, and rat brains. I
have some published atlases containing maps of these structures in a series of
closely spaced cross sections in each of three orthogonal planes through these
brains. I also have access to permanently mounted sections of actual brains
corresponding to the information obtained from the published atlases.
Ideally, we would input the coordinates for each structure in each plane of
section and have a collection of software programs connect those coordinates
into solid objects. Eventually, we would want to be able to examine three
dimensional projections into a two dimensional color frame buffer of any set
of internal objects to show their spatial relationships. The ability to
highlight significant structures would be advantageous. The ability to do
ray tracing, arbitrary surface textures, transparent (colored) objects, and
various reflection models would also be useful. In addition, we would want
to be able to do cut away diagrams of any sub collection of objects. Also,
we would be interested in enhancing digital images of actual brain sections
and reconstructing those sections using the published sections as an overlay.
We currently have a SUN-III/160C-P8 color workstation in our lab. We have
access to MOVIE.BYU on a CRAY-X/MP-48 and a ray tracing polygon rendering
program that accepts MOVIE.BYU polygon files on our SUN computer. We also
have access to BRLCAD on the SUN. We are considering purchase of Alpha_1
to assist in data capture on our SUN. We currently plan to purchase a high
resolution (4096 x 4096 pixel) linear scanning CCD color camera system from
Eikonix, a SUN-IV/260-GXP (or an IRIS 4D/70GT) and a PIXAR-II image computer
with 48 MB of memory.
If anyone is familiar with any additional low cost image processing software
systems for image enhancement, three diemsional reconstruction from serial
sections, and/or three dimensional solids modeling/volume rendering packages
I would appreciate a direct electronic mail message to:
drannala%neuro.usc.edu@oberon.usc.edu
Also, if you have positive or negative experience with any of the equipment
we are planning to purchase (or their equivalent ... eg. SUN/TAAC-1, AT&T
Pixel Machine, E&S PS390) in a solids modelinh environment I would greatly
appreciate a similar direct mail message. If there is sufficient interest,
I will repost an edited summary of the responses preserving the anonymity of
my sources.
Thanks for your kind assistance in helping me find appropriate software for
my image processing and solids modeling project.
Sincerely, Diane R. Annala