ITK News

ITK 4.1.0 Released

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0500

On behalf of the ITK community, Kitware and the ITK team are happy to announce the release of the Insight Toolkit 4.1.0! This release is the first since ITK 4.0.0 and includes a number of improvements and new features. Additionally, this is the first release to deviate from the even-only minor release number, an effect of transitioning to Git.

Notable improvements in this release include better VTK Bridge and WrapITK support, a new deconvolution filtering module with several classes, and a new TimeVaryingBSplineVelocityFieldTransform. There are also enhancements to the Registrationv4 and LevelSetsv4 frameworks, and a new video filtering module that includes a method to use standard filters in a video pipeline. Additionally, InsightApplications (from the ITKApps repository) has also seen a number of updates to ITKv4. <

ITK 4.0 is Now Available and Ready for Download!

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Kitware, on behalf of the ITK team, is pleased to announce the release of ITK 4.0.0 and the availability of the binaries, which are now available for download on the ITK download page. This release is the outcome of 18 months of refactoring efforts, generously sponsored by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) with funds provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

New features included in ITK 4.0.0

Kitware Receives $181,700 for 3D Slicer Enhancements

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Kitware has been awarded $181,700 in sub-recipient funding on a grant from the U.S. National Center of Research Resources, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The funding will be used to make enhancements to 3D Slicer, an open-source platform for medical image segmentation, registration, visualization, and analysis. 3D Slicer is funded by grants associated with the National Alliance for Medical Image Computing (NA-MIC) and the Neuroimaging Analysis Center (NAC), and supported by extensive user and developer communities.

Kitware announced free monthly online introductory courses in September 2011, and within days all four scheduled courses for VTK, CMake, ParaView, and ITK were filled. To better handle the community demand, Kitware has switched to a webinar format allowing up to 100 attendees per session. The following sessions now have additional availability:

Introduction to CMake
November 9, 2011, 10:00-11:30 a.m. EST
This webinar has already happened - view the recorded session.

This course provides an introduction to the CMake cross-platform build tool used by many open-source and commercial development projects world-wide. Using a tutorial format, this course introduces the concept of the basic CMakeLists configuration file for a simple project, then expands upon this to cover set

ITKv4 Beta Now Available

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Kitware and the ITK team are pleased to announce the release of ITKv4 Beta. This release includes number of changes resulting from the massive effort for revising, simplifying, and accelerating ITK. While some of the features in the Beta release are still works in progress, they are mature enough for developers to begin using them and provide early feedback on the design and implementation of the code.

Some highlights of this Beta release include an updated license, modularization, new level sets and registration frameworks, improved support for file formats and improved C++ code. The ITK license has been changed to Apache 2.0, which is a more modern, precise and professional license than BSD. Like the BSD license, the Apache 2.0 license still empowers the community to make full use of the toolkit without significant restrictions.

Kitware is pleased to announce the availability of free online courses in support of its open-source communities. The courses, designed to give new and beginning users the skills and knowledge required to effectively use these open-source tools, will provide an introduction to the Visualization Toolkit (VTK), CMake, ParaView, and the Insight Toolkit (ITK). Each 90-minute course will cover one toolkit and be taught by an expert Kitware instructor.

Introduction to VTK
This course provides an overview of the Visualization Toolkit suitable for new users. It covers the various data types supported by VTK, the pipeline architecture used for processing data, and the rendering framework used to display results. Attendees gain hands on experience through several programming examples presented to highlight key concepts. Examples cover the execution pipeli

Kitware Ranks #1572 on the 2011 Inc. 5000 List

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Inc. magazine announced this week its fifth annual Inc. 500|5000 list, an exclusive ranking of the nation's fastest-growing private companies. Kitware ranked #1572 overall, with three-year revenue growth of 175%, and #118 within its industry. The list represents the most comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy—America’s independent entrepreneurs. Online retailer ideeli tops this year’s list. Kitware joins Spirit Airlines, television maker Vizio, Honest Tea, Dunkin Donuts and Metrokane, makers of the Rabbit corkscrew, among other prominent brands featured on this year’s list.

This is the fourth consecutive year that Kitware has made the Inc.500|5000 list, predominantly attributed to its talented workforce and the success of its open-source business model. Kitware provides a

VolView 3.4 Released

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Kitware is pleased to announce the release of VolView 3.4, featuring several notable enhancements and marking the first open source release of this project. VolView is Kitware’s intuitive, interactive system for volume visualization that allows researchers to quickly explore and analyze complex 3D medical or scientific data on Windows, Mac and Linux computers. VolView is a great example of an end-user application built on top of the Visualization Toolkit (VTK) and the Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK), and has been in development since 1999.

The VolView 3.4 release contains several new features. Paintbrush widgets have been added to allow users to perform manual data segmentation in 2D and 3D. There are also new segmenta

Cmake 2.8.5 Released

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Kitware is pleased to announce the release of CMake 2.8.5. Particularly notable about this release is the number of individuals around the world who contributed code; 33 individuals added changes that have been incorporated into the CMake 2.8.5 release. By using a git workflow we are able to preserve the author in commit objects, even if pushed or applied by another contributor, enabling us to measure the number of contributors.

Additionally, there are new features in the release, such as the ProcessorCount module that provides a CMake language-based way to retrieve the number of processors usable for parallel building or testing. The CheckPrototypeDefinition module allows users to check if an exact function signature definition is available.

For the full list of changes and updates, the change log is available here and the release

Kitware Supports the VA's Open Source EHR

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Kitware is pleased to announce that it will be providing open-source expertise to the Informatics Applications Group (tiag) in support of the Department of Veteran Affair’s initiative to create a Custodial Agent for an Open Source Electronic Health Record. Visit osehrca.org for more information and to provide feedback.

Kitware Announces ITK Course in Lyon, France

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Kitware is pleased to announce a course covering the Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK) scheduled for June 7, 2011 in Lyon, France. This course will be an overview of ITK introducing new users to the toolkit. By the end of the course, attendees will understand ITK's basic functions, understand how to create an application with ITK, and be able to create and run registration and segmentation filters.

The instructor, Julien Jomier, will cover:

overview of ITK architecture
execution pipelines
streaming and data parallelism
basic filtering and segmentation
Registration pipeline
interfacing ITK with external applications
building ITK applications with a user interface
using ITK from various interpreted languages

The course will be a hands-on experience, with attendees down

Kitware Receives Tibbetts Award for STTR Program Excellence

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Kitware was honored with a Tibbetts Award for its Software Toolkit for Image-Guided Surgery (IGSTK) Phase I and II STTRS. The award, which recognizes companies who represent excellence in achieving the mission and goals of SBIR and STTR programs, is named for Roland Tibbetts. Tibbetts is considered the father of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which he began as an experimental project at the National Science Foundation in the early 1980's.

IGSTK, Kitware's cutting-edge tool for research involving minimally invasive image-guided medical procedures, is being used in investigations into new surgical techniques that may improve surgical accuracy and precision, increase a surgeon’s ability to confidently treat challenging and complex pathologies, decrease surgical trauma, and reduce recovery time for patients.

IGSTK 4.4 Released

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0500

On behalf of the Image-Guided Surgery Toolkit (IGSTK) team, Kitware is pleased to announce the release of IGSTK 4.4. IGSTK is a high-level, component-based framework that provides a common functionality for image-guided surgery applications. The framework is a set of high-level components integrated with low-level open source software libraries and application programming interfaces (API) from hardware vendors.

The new features in the 4.4 release include support for Ascension's 3D Guidance trackers (medSAFE, driveBAY and trakSTAR); PET image readers, spatial object and representation classes; and PET/CT fused image and electromagnetic tracker-guided needle biopsy application examples.

The build instructions can be found on the Kitware public wiki an

Kitware Announces Open Source Course in Lyon, France

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Kitware is pleased to announce a course covering its open source tools scheduled for February 2-4, 2011 in Lyon, France. This course will cover the Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK), the Visualization Toolkit (VTK), CMake, and ParaView, and is suitable for software developers who would like to learn more about these tools and for project managers intending to integrate these software tools into their team's development process. The course will be a hands-on experience, with attendees downloading the software tools in advance to use during the course exercises. By working in a familiar development environment (Windows, Linux, or Mac), attendees will be able to better focus on the course content, and will retain the course exercises for future reference.

The early registration deadline

Kitware's Most Popular Books Available on amazon.co.uk

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Two of Kitware's most popular technical books, Mastering CMake (ISBN-13: 978-1-930934-22-1) and The VTK User's Guide (ISBN-13: 978-1-930934-23-8) are now available through amazon.co.uk.

"This is great news for our European customers who can now obtain our books with the less expensive and more flexible shipping options that can be offered only by a large retail service such as Amazon," said Lisa Avila, Vice President

Kitware's Cutting-Edge Research Leads To Record Growth and More Jobs

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Kitware announced one of its largest growth periods in the company’s history. Revenue growth from $5.6M in 2005 to a projected $15M in 2010, buoyed by newly awarded research grants and contracts, has extended the company’s immediate hiring needs in both the New York and North Carolina offices. Kitware is expecting to add more than 30 percent to its workforce before the end of 2011.

Kitware’s technology portfolio includes 3D visualization and informatics, scientific databases, quality software process, medical imaging and computer vision. In addition to military groups like Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Kitware often partners with premier organizations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. National Labs, Harvard, MIT and Stanford. Kitware is also hire

Kitware Offers Free Access to VolView

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Kitware has announced that VolView, a commercial product for exploring and analyzing complex 3D medical or scientific data, will now be available free of charge to researchers around the world.

First developed in 1999 as an intuitive, interactive system for volume visualization, VolView allows users to load and interactively explore datasets using both 2D and 3D display methods. To view a short demonstration, please click here.

Compatible with Windows, Mac or Linux, VolView is capable of volume rendering, maximum intensity projections and oblique reformatting. In addition, VolView can load multiple datasets simultaneously, support creating and applying 2D a

Kitware, Leading US Builder of Open Source Technology and Developer of Advanced Research Solutions, Unveils Plans for the RSNA 2010 Conference

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

At RSNA 2010, Kitware will highlight a number of applications and technologies designed to deliver advanced medical imaging solutions based on free and open source software for scientists and engineers. In addition, Kitware will make an announcement in regards to VolView, a biomedical imaging research application that the company says will have a definitive impact on researchers worldwide.

Kitware, Inc. a software services company that builds open-source platforms and develops advanced research solutions, will attend and exhibit at the International RSNA 2010 conference, to take place at the McCormick Place in Chicago from November 28-December 3, 2010. At the conference, Kitware will highlight a number of applications and technologies designed to deliver advanced medical imaging solutions based on free and open source software for scientists and engineers. In addition, Kitware will make an announcement in regards to VolView, a biomedical imaging research applic

Kitware & the NA-MIC Community Announce Alpha Release of 3D Slicer 4.0

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400

3D Slicer is an open-source (BSD-style license) platform for medical image segmentation, registration, visualization and analysis. It represents a practical integration of innovations from a multitude of fields including medical image analysis, cross-platform software development, collaborative software development and extensible platform design. Kitware has been closely involved in many of these innovations. In particular, 3D Slicer builds upon ITK, VTK, CMake, CDash, CTK and MIDAS.

Slicer is funded by grants associated with the National Alliance for Medical Image Computing (NA-MIC) and the Neuroimaging Analysis Center (NAC) and has an extensive community behind it. The lead institute for these multi-institutional centers is Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH). Other funded participants include the University of Utah, GE Corporate Research, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Georgia Tech, Johns Hopkins, MIND Institute, MIT, MGH, UCLA, and many others.

To date, 3D Slicer contai

ITKv4

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Ten years ago, the National Library of Medicine initiated a software development program to produce an open-source toolkit for the segmentation and registration of medical images, in particular the Visible Man and Visible Woman data. The outcome of that program was the Insight Toolkit (ITK). From those humble beginnings, ITK is now used in basic and applied research, commercial medical image processing and surgical guidance systems around the world.

It is estimated that ITK is contributing to projects in over 45 countries and in nearly every major academic and industry research lab involved in medical image analysis. Applications areas include radiology, neurology, pathology, oncology, neurosurgery and even satellite imagery. Data being processed by ITK includes nearly every medical imaging modality such as electron microscopy, MRI, CT, PET, ultrasound, video and OCT.

This year, ITK will be going through a major refactoring process to ensure its vitality for the next ten years. The main goa

Kitware Announces Opening of European Office

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Lyon office allows the Company to continue its expansion
into European markets and better service its current
European customers and collaborators

CLIFTON PARK, NY – October 25, 2010 – Kitware, a software services company that builds open-source platforms and develops advanced research solutions, today announced the opening of its European Office Kitware SAS. Located in Lyon, France, the office will be headed by Julien Jomier, a current Kitware U.S. employee with expertise in software process, medical ima

Kitware Welcomes Nine New Employees

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Lynn Bardsley
Lynn joined Kitware as a Program Manager for the Computer Vision Group in July. She received her M.S. in Computer Science from Union College.

Dhanannjay Deo
Dr. Deo joined Kitware as a member of the Scientific Visualization Group in August. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pune, his M.S. from the Indian Institute of Science and his Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Xiaoxiao Liu
Xiaoxiao joined Kitware as a member of the Medical Imaging Group in September. She received a B.E. in Computer Science and an M.E. in Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Systems from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Kitware Tapped by National Alliance for Medical Image Computing to Continue Development of its Advanced Biomedical Imaging Toolkit

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Kitware, developers of open source and advanced research solutions, today announced the renewal of a contract with the National Alliance for Medical Image Computing (NA-MIC) to continue with its development of the NA-MIC Kit, a high-quality software for solving medical image analysis and visualization challenges in bio-medical research. In addition, Kitware has been charged by NA-MIC with assisting in traumatic brain injury research through the analysis of MRI longitudinal studies.

One of seven National Centers for Biomedical Computing (NCBC), NA-MIC's focus is to convert scientific advances within biomedical imaging into open-source resources to develop advanced software tools. In 2004, Kitware was contracted by NA-MIC to develop the original Kit, a scalable, free open-source software system used by clinicians and biomedical researchers to mine large quantities of imaging data and use advanced computational tools such as longitudinal and statistical analysis to identify unique patient data and rel

Kitware Ranks No. 1655 on the 2010 Inc. 5000 with Three-Year Sales Growth of 172%

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Inc. magazine today ranked Kitware NO. 1655 on its fourth annual Inc. 5000, an exclusive ranking of the nation's fastest-growing private companies. The list represents the most comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy—America’s independent-minded entrepreneurs. Music website Pandora, convenience store chain 7-Eleven, Brooklyn Brewery, and Radio Flyer, maker of the iconic children’s red wagon, are among the prominent brands featured on this year’s list.

“The leaders of the companies on this year’s Inc. 5000 have figured out how to grow their businesses during the longest recession since the Great Depression,” said Inc. president Bob LaPointe. “The 2010 Inc. 5000 showcases a particularly hardy group of entrepreneurs.”

Kitware, Inc. is a leader in the creation and support of open- source software

Kitware Welcomes Nine New Employees, Looking to Hire More

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Kitware welcomes several new employees to the team:

Jacob Becker

Jacob joined Kitware's Computer Vision Group in October 2009 as an R&D Engineer. Jacob received his B.S. in Computer Science and Archaeology from the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse (UW-L) in 2001 and his M.S. in Computer Science from RPI in 2009. While at RPI he researched aligning a 2D image to a 3D model and filling in holes in LiDAR data using evidence provided by a single aligned 2D image.

Aasish Chaudhary

Aashish joined Kitware's Scientific Computing Group in October 2009 as an R&D Engineer. Aashish received his B.S. (Honors) in Mechanical Engineering from Devhi Ahilya University (India) in 2000 and his M.S. in Industrial Engineering with minor in Computer Science from Iowa State University. His thesis work involved researching, design

Stephen Aylward to speak at the "From MICCAI Algorithms to Clinical Translational Tools: The NA-MIC Platform" Tutorial

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

MICCAI offers a window into the latest scientific achievements in medical image computing and computer assisted interventions which will lead to the next generation of technological breakthroughs for improved clinical care. A critical step to maximize the long-term positive impact of MICCAI cutting-edge algorithms is to enable their deployment, validation and concrete use by the clinical research community for whom they were developed.

For the past six years, the National Alliance for Medical Image Computing (NA-MIC), one of the seven National Centers for Biomedical Computing (NCBC), part of the NIH Roadmap for medical research, has focused its efforts on the conversion of scientific advances from the biomedical imaging community into open-source resources for users and developers, in order to improve the availability and deployment of advanced software tools on a national and international scale.

The objective of the tutorial is to introduce the challen

Kitware Awarded NIH Grant to Improve Lesion Biopsy Using PET-CT Imaging

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Kitware has received a one-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) totaling $228,458 to improve the clinical effectiveness of liver lesion biopsy using PET-CT imaging. The project will extend the open source Image Guided Surgery Toolkit (IGSTK) to enable the fusion of motion corrected PET images with CT images for liver lesion biopsy.

The main focus of the project will be the development of a robust respiratory motion correction technique aimed at producing more effective PET-CT guided biopsies. Kitware and its team of researchers will develop a respiratory motion correction algorithm to help develop a better technique, which decreases errors in imaging caused by artifacts like organ sliding which can occur just from the natural respiration process.

''While PET imaging can localize malignancies in tumors that do not have a CT correlate, the diagnostic benefit is often gravely affected by basic respiratory motion,'' said Dr. Andinet Enquobahrie, tech

Kitware Receives $1.07 Million in Stimulus Funds to Further Innovation in the Renowned Insight Toolkit (ITK)

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Kitware today announced it has received a $1.07 million grant from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to improve the Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK). A dynamic, self-sustaining, cross-platform, and open source application development framework, ITK is used freely in a multitude of commercial and non-commercial image segmentation and registration programs. Kitware's proposal will go towards lowering the learning curve for researchers and developers, and incorporating innovative high-performance computing technologies, while maintaining the toolkit's versatility and industry-leading capabilities.

Created with funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, with program management provided by the National Library of Medicine, ITK is an established foundation for medical imaging research and the distribution of advanced imaging solutions. Kitware, one of the original ITK development teamss 10 years ago, is now one of the six institutes charged with revising ITK'

ITK Has Moved to Git!

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0400

We're pleased to announce the completion of the ITK repository conversion from CVS to Git. The CVS repositories for Insight and InsightApplications have been permanently frozen. Development of ITK is now officially hosted by Git. The official repository URLs are:

One may also browse the repositories online via gitweb: http://itk.org/gitweb

See the ITK Git wiki page for further instructions: http://www.itk.org/Wiki/ITK/Git

ITK 3.20 Now Available

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0400

We are pleased to announce the release of ITK 3.20. Source files and download instructions are available at
http://itk.org/ITK/resources/software.html

The list of new files can be found at: http://www.itk.org/Wiki/ITK_Release_3.20

The list of changed files can be found at: http://www.itk.org/Wiki/ITK_Release_3.20_Changed_From_Previous

Please let us know if you find any problems.

ITK 3.18 Now Available for Ubuntu 10.04

Wed, 05 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Thanks to Dr. Paul Novotny ITK 3.18 is now available for Ubuntu 10.04. Ubuntu 10.04 (codenamed the Lucid Lynx) is the latest release of the Ubuntu operating system. As always this Ubuntu packaging includes the WrapITK module for using ITK with Python.

Currently, Dr. Novotny creates his own test packages and the developers of the Vascular Modeling Toolkit (vmtk.org) who are one of his largest user bases of ITK/Ubuntu packages help test the software. Kitware would like to thank Dr. Novotny for his work on this package. Such volunteer acts allow our toolkits to be more easily adopted by a broad set of users, and we are greatly appreciative of these types of efforts.

If you are interested in installing the ITK 3.18 Ubuntu package please visit: http://paulnovo.org/repository. If you are interested in helping Dr. Novotny test ITK

An Update on VTK's Git Conversion

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0400

We're pleased to announce the completion of the repository conversion. The CVS repositories have been permanently frozen (an extra commit will be added to them to help direct folks that try them at the new repos).

Development of VTK, ParaView, IceT, and Xdmf is now officially hosted by Git. All repositories may be browsed online via gitweb:

http://vtk.org/gitweb
http://paraview.org/gitweb

The individual gitweb pages show the repository URLs.
The git clone/fetch URLs for the repositories are:

git://vtk.org/VTK.git
git://vtk.org/VTKData.git
git://paraview.org/ParaView.git
git://paraview.org/ParaViewData.git
git://public.kitware.com/IceT.git
git://public.kitware.com/Xdmf.git

Replace "git://" with "http://" to get http protocol access.

The Wiki pages have been updated to refer to the offici

Adopt A Bug 2.0

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The ITK development team is hosting another bugathon with Adopt-A-Bug 2.0. Users can volunteer to adopt-a-bug. In doing so you agree to either fix the bug, or pester/motivate/encourage developers to fix the bug.

Bug adopters will receive full ITK-developer status, including:

CVS write access;
MANTIS tracker developer status;
and recognition in the ITK Wiki.

Visit the ITK Wiki for more information.

VTK and ParaView to Make Transition to Git

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Over the next few days we will transition both VTK and ParaView to Git. Additional details are available on these Wiki pages (under development):

http://www.vtk.org/Wiki/VTK/Git
http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView/Git

We've already released the binaries for ParaView and the binaries for VTK will be available soon. Our timeline for the permanent transition is:

April 16: Have Kitware-maintained VTK and ParaView dashboard clients transitioned to use new "vtk_common" and "paraview_common" helper scripts that provide a single point of change for switching from CVS to Git.

April 19: Lock VTK and ParaView CVS repositories, push final changes to Git, switch all dashboards over to Git. There will be a final commit to CVS after this that adds a message() to

ITK 3.18 Now Available

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0400

ITK 3.18 is now available for download. The main changes in this release include:

Improvements in implementation of mathematical traits, particularly for fast rounding, contributed by Brad Lowenkamp and Tom Vercauteren.
Addition of classes for managing internationalization of strings, contributed by Tom Vercauteren.
Updated the version of NrrdIO library in Utilities, thanks to Gordon Kindlmann and Michel Audette.
Fixed shadowing warnings reported by gcc.
Recently added classes were included in the Wrapping, thanks to Gaetan Lehmann.
Improved support for Symmetric Tensor operations, thanks to Luke Bloy.
Improved behavior of the Object Factories, thanks to Brad Lowenkamp.
Improved testing for Discrete Gaussian derivative fi

Kitware Launches Developer Blog

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Kitware launched its first developer blog today which will be penned by Kitware's Research and Development Team and Corporate Leadership. The blog was designed to help our user community and those with an interest in specific Kitware toolkits, products or people, keep up with our current thoughts and interests.

Our team is free to write about whatever topic they'd like (of course, without violating any legal agreements). So what you see on the blog may not necessarily represent the views of Kitware as a whole, and you may even see dissenting opinions in the comments posted by other Kitware employees. Comments have been enabled so that you can interact with the posts as they go live. We encourage our readers to provide suggestions and engage in a dialogue with us and each other through the Kitware blog. While we do allow negative feedback, we will remove any spam, profanity, or excessively

ITK Dashboard Fest 1.0

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Dashboard Fest 1.0 was a huge success thanks to your contributions. Our goal was to hit 200 experimental builds, and by the end of the day on Friday November 6, 2009, 1,033 experimental builds had been submitted to the Dashboard from 106 different computers. ITK developers rock!

The following users submitted the largest number of builds:

Gaëtan Lehmann (INRA)
Kevin Hobbs (Ohio University)
Oleksander Dzyubak (Mayo Clinic)
Arnaud Gelas (Harvard)
Alexandre Gouaillard (Harvard)
Kishore Mosaliganti (Harvard)
Hans Johnson (Iowa)
Kent Williams (Iowa)
Bradley Lowekamp (NLM/Lockheed Martin)
Sean McBride (Rogue Research)
Mathieu Coursolle (Rogue Research)
Christian Haselgrove (NITRC)
Steve Pieper (Brigham and Women's Hospital)
Iván Macía (Vicomtec

ITK 3.16 is Now Available for Ubuntu 9.10

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Thanks to Dr. Paul Novotny ITK 3.16 is now available for Ubuntu 9.10. Currently, Dr. Novotny creates his own test packages and the developers of the Vascular Modeling Toolkit (vmtk.org) who are one of his largest user bases of ITK/Ubuntu packages help test the software. Kitware would like to thank Dr. Novotny for his work on this package. Such volunteer acts allow our toolkits to be more easily adopted by a broad set of users, and we are greatly appreciative of these types of efforts.

If you are interested in installing the ITK 3.16 Ubuntu package please visit: http://paulnovo.org/repository. If you are interested in helping Dr. Novotny test ITK Ubuntu packages please contact him via email at paul@paulnovo.org.

2nd Biomedical Visualization Contest Winners

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Kitware held its 2nd Annual Contest to find the best biomedical visualization made using the freely-available, open-source Visualization Toolkit and the Insight Registration and Segmentation Toolkit.

Judging for this contest was completed in a secure online environment and the winners were announced at 12th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention, held September 20 - 24, 2009 in London, England.

This year's submissions employed the following software applications in creating their contest submissions: caBIG-XIP, 3D Slicer, Osirix<

ITK 3.16 Released

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400

ITK 3.16 was released on September 15, 2009. The main changes in this release include the continued addition of classes for managing labeled images contributed on an Insight Journal article by G. Lehmann. These added classes were the remaining components of a 70+ class label map morphology module. These classes provide for the efficient representation of label maps and for conversion between current ITK label images and the efficient storage format. Details are available from "Label Object Representation and Manipulation with ITK", which can be read in the January Source or on the Insight Journal (http://hdl.handle.net/1926/584). These new classes can be found in the Code/Review Directory and can be enabled by setting the CMake variable

Kitware to Host 2nd Annual Visualization Contest at MICCAI 2009

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Kitware is hosting its 2nd Annual Best Biomedical Visualization Contest in conjunction with MICCAI 2009, the 12th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention, which will be held in London from September 20-24.

The contest, which is open to the public, is being hosted at: public.kitware.com/ImageVote. Users may submit visualizations and cast votes after registering, for free, at the contest website. Visualizations may be charts, graphs, photographs, or renderings from the biomedical field.

All images must have been produced by programs that use ITK and/or VTK. To that effect we've generated a list of applications on the contest website and kitware.com which use ITK and VTK and are therefore e

ITK 3.14 is Now Available for Ubuntu 9.04

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Thanks to Dr. Paul Novotny ITK 3.14 is now available for Ubuntu 9.04. Dr. Novotny works at the Children's Hospital in Boston where they are using ITK to prototype a tool for ultrasound-guided heart surgery. His department is pioneering the use of 3D ultrasound techniques to operate on the beating heart. ITK and Python are used to read images and prototype algorithms in order to write custom software for surgeons to implement these surgical techniques.

If you are interested in installing the ITK 3.14 Ubuntu package please visit: January Source or on the Insight Journal (http://hdl.handle.net/1926/1452).

Direct FFT-based sinogram to image tom

ITK 3.12 Released

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400

ITK 3.12 was released on March 3, 2009. The main changes in this release include the addition of classes contributed to the Insight Journal for performing:

certain specific Mathematical Morphology operations,
robust automatic thresholding,
computation of shape features such as tubularness, sheetness and blobiness, and
a more flexible flood filled iterator.

Further improvements were made for providing conistent management of image directions.

Support for image streaming on the writers was made functional thanks to the help of Brad Lowekamp. More information on image streaming support can be found in Bradley Lowenkamp's article published in the April 2009 Source.

Coding style was fixed across the toolkit by taking advantage of the KWStyle automatic style checker tool. From hereafter coding style will be verified at the moment of committin

3-D Snapshots of Eyes Reveal Details of Age-Related Blindness

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0400

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Colleen Morrison
The Optical Society
202.416.1437
cmorri@osa.org

Devin Powell
American Institute of Physics
301.209.3099
dpowell@aip.org

Interactive Science Publishing Helps Researchers Examine the Problems of Age-Related Macular Degeneration in Unprecedented Detail

WASHINGTON, March 19- To get a better look at the abnormalities that cause age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of vision loss in Americans and Europeans over 50, the research groups of James Fujimoto at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and collaborators Jay Duker of the Tufts University School of Medicine, and Joel Schuman of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have created ultra-detailed 3-D images of the eyes of more than 2,000 people

ITK 3.12 Released

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0500

ITK 3.12 was released on March 3, 2009. You can download this release from:

http://www.itk.org/ITK/resources/software.html
through CVS by using the tag:ITK-3-12
from Sourceforge:http://sourceforge.net/projects/itk/

The list of new classes and files included in this release can be found at the following Wiki page: http://www.itk.org/Wiki/ITK_Release_3.12

The changes between this release and the previous one can be found at the following Wiki page: http://www.itk.org/Wiki/ITK_Release_3.12_Changed_Fr

ITK 3.10.2 Patch Release

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0500

ITK 3.10.2 was released on January 25, 2009. This patch contains a fix for the itkMultiThreader class, related to the global settings of maximum number of threads and default number of threads.

The patch can be downloaded here.

ITK 3.10 Released

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500

ITK 3.10 was released on November 4, 2008. The major changes in this release include:

Implementation of kernel-base filters contributed by Richard Beare and Gaetan Lehmann. (http://hdl.handle.net/1926/555). In particular applied to Mathematical Morphology, and filters that can be computed using moving histograms, such as Mean, Standard Deviation and Rank.
Gaussian derivative operators contributed by Ivan Macia (http://hdl.handle.net/1926/1290). This contribution includes methods for computing Hessians and their eigen values at given points in an image.
Mesh processing filters for surfaces using the QuadEdge mesh representation, contributed by Arnaud Gelas, Alexander Gouaillard, and Sean Megason (http://hdl.handle.net/1926/1495).
Parameterization of discrete surfaces contributed by Arnaud Gelas and Alexander Go

ITK 3.8 Released

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

ITK 3.8 was released on July 30. The major changes in this release include:

Introduction of the Diffeomorphic Demons deformable registration family of classes contributed by Tom Vercauteren et. al, in their Insight Journal paper.
ImageIO classes to read Phillips/PAR/REC files and Bruker2D files, contributed by Don Bigler et. al, in their paper to the Insight Journal.
Slice-by-Slice filter contributed by Gaetan Lehmann in his paper to the Insight Journal.
FFT & Helper classes for Complex image manipulations contributed by Simon Warfield in his Insight Journal paper.
ImageIO classes for CUB file format, contributed by Pablo Burstein et. al, in their Insight Journal paper.
Added support for the GCC 4.3 compiler

New Open Source Project Sites

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0400

In late October Kitware will launch the new ParaView (paraview.org) and CDash (cdash.org) websites. The new CMake (cmake.org) site went live at the beginning of September. Additionally, a brand new site for the new VTKEdge toolkit (vtkedge.org) will go live in late October as well. The new site design is focused on providing researchers and developers with streamlined access to information and will provide users with a multitude of resources to assist in development, creating easier access to licensing information, related publications, ways to get involved with the projects, and resources for development and support. Additionally, the new sites are uniformly designed so that users will find consistency when accessing information from project to project.

ITK 3.6 Released

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

ITK 3.6 was released on April 15, 2008. The main changes in this release relate to improvements of the image registration framework. In particular, a set of multi-threaded image metric implementations have been added to the Code/ Review directory. Stephen Aylward led the team that developed these new classes. Team members included Brad Davis, Sebastién Barré and Matt Turek. Very valuable feedback was provided by Jim Miller (GE), Serdar Balci (MIT) and Golina Polland (MIT).

The registration framework was also revised in order to:

Provide correct management of Oriented Images
Reduce memory requirements of BSpline deformable registration
Reduce memory requirements of Mattes Mutual Information image metric
Add nightly testing for 3D image registration cases

There were a limited number of classes added to the Code/ Review directory.

In particular:

Image Projection Filters
Helper classes for profi

ITK 3.2 Released

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0500

ITK 3.2 was released on March 11th, 2007. In this release, source code from several papers contributed by users to the Insight Journal was introduced into the Review directory of the toolkit. These contributions include, among other topics:

• Watershed Transform,
• Neural Networks IO,
• Quad Edge Mesh infrastructure,
• Conformal Flattening,
• Optimizations for connected components and morphology filters,
• Regional Extrema Finding,
• Contour 2D Extractor,
• Bayesian Classifier,
• Image projections along axis, and
• Label Overlays.

Contributions that were in the Review directory for two previous releases were also moved to their final location inside the toolkit. In particular, a collection of classes for computing statistical distributions (including Chi square, Gaussian, and T distributions) were moved from the Review directory into the Code/Numerics/Statistics directory.

The Insight Jour

ITK 3.0 Released

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

ITK 3.0 was released on November 21, 2006. The main change in this release is the addition of an alternative wrapping system called WrapITK. This system was contributed by Gaetan Lehmann, Zachary Pincus and Benoit Regrain in a paper submitted to the Insight Journal. The paper can be found at the following Insight Journal handle: http://hdl.handle.net/1926/188.

WrapITK uses CMake macros in order to generate the instantiations of ITK templated classes. The instantiations are then processed using CableSwig in order to generate wrappings for Tcl, Python, and Java. The previous wrapping mechanism is still available. Users can select what wrapping to use by setting CMake variables at configuration time.

A review of copyrights and licenses of different subcomponents of the Insight Toolkit was also performed. Several components that were not compatible with the BSD licens

ITK 2.6 Released

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 00:00:00 -0500

ITK 2.6 was released on March 1, 2006. ITK has adopted a Quarterly release model in order to more rapidly deliver new features to the community. This release schedule began with the ITK 2.4 release. Highlights of the 2.6 release include:

• For the first time the Open Access Insight Journal was used as the official mechanism for new classes and algorithms. See the ITK Wiki (http://www.itk.org/Wiki) for a description of this new procedure.
• Four contributions from papers submitted and reviewed in the Insight Journal were added to the toolkit.

These contributions are as follows:
• The Invert Intensity Image Filter is a filter based on a Functor that inverts the intensities in one image. Although this filter is relatively simple, it is significant because it was contributed with a clean coding style by a user that has not participated before as a developer.
• The Modulus Image Filter is also a filter based on a Functor and computes modulus on a pixel-by-pixel

Kitware Wins Contract from NLM for Long-Term ITK Maintenance

Fri, 10 Sep 2004 00:00:00 -0400

Kitware, Inc. has been granted a contract by the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health (NLM/NIH) to perform ongoing maintenance of the Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK). This maintenance includes supporting and porting ITK on computing platforms; extending ITK's class structure, performing bug fixes and quality enhancements; and building interfaces from ITK to other systems. ITK is a premiere, open-source system used around the world in medical image analysis.

Kitware, Inc. is a leading software development company providing products and services in the areas of medical image analysis, visualization and 3D graphics, supercomputing, computer vision, open publication, and software quality process. Kitware is known for its advanced open source software tools such as the widely used Visualization Toolkit (VTK), Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK), and the CMake build management software. Established in 1998, Kitware is rapidly growing

NLM Extends and Expands Funding for ITK

Tue, 10 Sep 2002 00:00:00 -0400

The growing success of the Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK) and the key role played by Kitware as architectural leads has led the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to award an additional year of funding to Kitware. The main activities to be developed include software maintenance, documentation, training and user support.

Project Background: In 1999 The National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in collaboration with partner institutes and agencies NIDCR, NEI, NSF, NIDCD, and NCI (see below for acronyms) awarded a three year, multi-million dollar contract to six groups to develop an open source segmentation and registration toolkit. The groups include GE Research, Kitware, UNC-CH, UPenn, U. of Tennesee (now University of Utah), and MathSoft (now Insightful). (Subcontractors include Harvard Brigham & Women's Hospital, UPenn's GRASP Lab, Columbia University, and the Univ. of Pittsburgh).

For

Kitware Wins Contract from NLM for Long-Term ITK Maintenance

Wed, 10 Nov 1999 00:00:00 -0500