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Ricerca>Progetti>Micropix>Initial
proposal and goals Project Title MICROPIX Date February 4th, 1999 Participants to the Project Project manager and principal investigator Dr. Michele Crudele Medical Informatics Laboratory Libera Università "Campus Bio-Medico" di Roma via Longoni 83 I-00155 ROMA tel. +39-06.22.54.13.60 fax +39-06.22.54.14.56 ISDN videoconference +39-06.22.75.45.45 m.crudele@unicampus.it http://crudele.unicampus.it Other investigators Dr. Gina Zini ReCAMH UCSC (Research Center for Automated Methods in Hematology) Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Policlinico Gemelli Largo F. Vito, 1 I-00167 ROMA tel and fax +39-06.30.13.90.9 recamh@rm.unicatt.it Dr. Sergio Morini Human Anatomy Department Libera Università "Campus Bio-Medico" di Roma via Longoni 83 I-00155 ROMA tel. +39-06.22.54.13.32 fax +39-06.22.54.14.56 s.morini@unicampus.it Dr. Roberto Diana Medical Informatics Laboratory Libera Università "Campus Bio-Medico" di Roma via Longoni 83 I-00155 ROMA tel. +39-06.22.54.13.98 fax +39-06.22.54.14.56 r.diana@unicampus.it Summary The availability of microscopes in a histology, anatomy or haematology laboratory is limited at least by these factors: cost of the microscope, care in handling the microscope, cost and number of the slides. Therefore most of the time a tutor is required in the lab to assist and control the use of the microscopes. This, of course, limits the opening hours of a microscope lab. On the contrary, in every University, computers are ubiquitous and easy to access. Most of the students know how to use them and they do not require special assistance. The integration of a microscope lab with a system based on digital images on a computer network can be a solution for the problems addressed. The use of OpenPix as a platform for delivering microscopic images can help in solving issues regarding resolution, quality and bandwidth. Milestones
Background In "Campus Bio-Medico" University of Rome the Medical Informatics Laboratory has started a project with the aim of overcoming the reduced availability hours of the microscope lab through the use of the multimedia laboratory which is open the whole day. We have developed a program, written using Asymetrix Toolbook, to simulate the process of analysing an anatomical structure on a slide, as if the student were using the microscope with the aid of a teacher. We have captured the slides at different magnification values, through the use of a video camera attached to the microscope, converting them in JPEG format. On many images we have also defined "hot areas" in order to give hints about the structures seen on them. A text is associated to every image. The student can see the miniatures of the slide at all the magnifications normally used in the microscope lab: by selecting one of them, the student can enlarge it and check the details. The implementation is now on the internal University LAN. We have chosen Toolbook as an authoring tool because of its capabilities to convert the entire project into Internet format. Our final goal is to have it accessible by any browser, first in the University Campus and later from anywhere in the world, so that our students can use it also when they are at home, out of Rome. The main issue when making images available over the Internet is loading time. Full sized images can take very long time to show on a PC connected at 28.8 Kbps: they are captured by the video camera (more than 700 pixel wide) and compressed in JPEG format, with a low compression rate in order not to loose important details. We believe that the FlashPIX format can help in solving this problem, especially through the use of the incremental resolution feature. The actual multimedia lab in "Campus Bio-Medico" University has been working for five years. Therefore the PC’s are not at the state of the art. They are 486 processors and the graphic display is capable of only 256 colours at 800x600. Support from HP is therefore requested to update the lab and to set up the OpenPix server. Activity Description Capturing images The first phase of the project is the provision of images from the microscope. After a long study and some benchmarks we have chosen the SNAPPY capturing device by PLAY Inc. (www.play.com) as the best for still images. The producers of this hardware claim that it can reach 1500x1125 pixel size even from a Video PAL source because it uses a proprietary system developed for professional television. As we are now using a S-VHS video camera attached to the microscope, we should therefore improve noticeably over the previous capturing device which limited the resolution to below 700 pixels. The hardware is assisted by special software algorithms developed by AI experts in image analysis. The capturing phase will be run at both Universities involved in the project. Campus Bio-Medico will focus on anatomy and histology, while Catholic University will work on haematology. Hardware and OpenPix set up As soon as the hardware for the server is available we’ll install the OpenPix server and start configuring it for the best Intranet development with the digital images captured at the time. The multimedia lab installation will follow immediately to give the chance of testing the server with multiple concurrent users. Conversion of the Toolbook program The task of converting the existing Toolbook program into an Internet technology based system, supporting OpenPix, is the most complex part of the project. Even though the tools for migrating Toolbook applications are available, there are some issues to be examined because some features (like "hot spots") are also included in the OpenPix system with a different technology. Implementation and testing First of all we’ll use the system for teaching purposes inside the Campus Bio-Medico University where the main OpenPix server is being installed. During this phase performance and usability will be analysed by a full 25 students concurrent access. When the tuning of the software is complete, we’ll migrate the system to external access, with some limitations because of image copyright issues. The first external users will be physicians and students of the Catholic University. When the testing phase is completed, external public access will be given to Internet users. Future enhancements The OpenPix server will be used also for providing some radiological images (CT and MR) to the students. It would be very useful to have a full DICOM format support in the OpenPix server. This format is the most common in medical imaging and it is supposed to become the only standard in a short time. Publication of the results A first paper regarding the whole project has been presented at the Italian Medical Informatics Congress in October 1998, in Taranto. It has been published in the proceedings and it is available at This proposal, the results and the ongoing process of MICROPIX will be published into the web server http://research.unicampus.it/micropix | |||||||||||||||||