The examples drawn for illustration are all from medical imaging . We hope the users will give their own application-specific interpretations and thereby be able to use 3DVIEWNIX operations in their own field.
3DVIEWNIX is based on the Unix operating system, X-Windows, and the C programming language. Data handled by 3DVIEWNIX are all represented in a protocol that is a multidimensional generalization of the ACR-NEMA (2.0) standards.
1.1 How To Use This Document
Section 2 describes the 3DVIEWNIX installation procedure. Systems
managers or those who are responsible to install 3DVIEWNIX at your site
should read that section. We recommend that all those who are interested
in 3DVIEWNIX including end-users, developers, and imaging researchers,
read Sections 1 and 3-7. In addition, if you are an end-user, you may
study only those sections that describe the particular operations in
which you are interested. For example, if your main concern is
visualization, you may study Sections 1 and 3 to 7 and 10. However, this
sort of partitioning cannot be done for several reasons. For example,
the data have to be somehow brought into the 3DVIEWNIX system, and
often, some form of preprocessing is required to visualize data. This
implies that you will have to use some PORT-DATA and PREPROCESS
commands, although you may not care about other commands under these
headings. Another reason is that the main operations of visualization,
manipulation and analysis cannot be compartmentalized independently of
each other. Some form of visualization is always needed whatever is the
3D imaging operation. Therefore, a given operation is often available
under more than one of these main headings. In addition to
visualization, some simple forms of analysis are available under each of
the three categories. Hence, to be able to decide which command is the
best to realize a given operation, we advise the user to eventually
become familiar with all major commands available in 3DVIEWNIX.
In each of the main chapters in this manual devoted to the description of a particular group of commands, we first describe how the commands and options that are common to the commands in the group work. This will be followed by a description of the remaining commands. Although straightforward description of commands in this manner is essential, that by itself may not reveal the powerful operations that are possible when the commands and options are combined in certain ways . Therefore, at the end of the description of certain complex commands, we give examples to illustrate how the command fits in in our overall scheme of operations. Additionally, in Chapter 14, we present "3D Imaging Recipes" that exemplify complex operations expressed as combinations of commands and options. They not only exemplify specific visualization, manipulation, and analysis procedures, but hopefully also serve to introduce the users to the nuances of 3DVIEWNIX so that they may on their own explore other operations in analogous ways.