A software to digital image processing to be used in the voxel phantom development

Abstract

Anthropomorphic models used in computational dosimetry, also denominated phantoms, are based on digital images recorded from scanning of real people by Computed Tomography (CT) or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). The voxel phantom construction requests computational processing for transformations of image formats, to compact two-dimensional (2-D) images forming of three-dimensional (3-D) matrices, image sampling and quantization, image enhancement, restoration and segmentation, among others. Hardly the researcher of computational dosimetry will find all these available abilities in single software, and almost always this difficulty presents as a result the decrease of the rhythm of his researches or the use, sometimes inadequate, of alternative tools. The need to integrate the several tasks mentioned above to obtain an image that can be used in an exposure computational model motivated the development of the Digital Image Processing (DIP) software, mainly to solve particular problems in Dissertations and Thesis developed by members of the Grupo de Pesquisa em Dosimetria Numérica (GDN/CNPq). Because of this particular objective, the software uses the Portuguese idiom in their implementations and interfaces. This paper presents the second version of the DIP, whose main changes are the more formal organization on menus and menu items, and menu for digital image segmentation. Currently, the DIP contains the menus Fundamentos, Visualizaçíµes, Domí­nio Espacial, Domí­nio de Frequíªncias, Segmentaçíµes and Estudos. Each menu contains items and sub-items with functionalities that, usually, request an image as input and produce an image or an attribute in the output. The DIP reads edits and writes binary files containing the 3-D matrix corresponding to a stack of axial images from a given geometry that can be a human body or other volume of interest. It also can read any type of computational image and to make conversions. When the task involves only an output image, this is saved as a JPEG file in the Windows default; when it involves an image stack, the output binary file is denominated SGI (Simulaçíµes Gráficas Interativas (Interactive Graphic Simulations), an acronym already used in other publications of the GDN/CNPq.