 |
AND THE BEAT GOES ON: The User The Cardiac Rhythm Management Laboratory (CRML) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham is a state-of-the-art 15,000 square-foot research facility that houses an interdisciplinary team of biomedical engineers, electro physiologists, physicians and veterinarians. Each year, approximately 400,000 people in North America die of cardiac arrhythmias. CRML research seeks to understand the formation, maintenance and termination of life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias with the goal of improving treatment strategies. CRML members are world leaders in electrical and optical mapping technology -- the simultaneous measurement of electrical potential distributions with high spatial and temporal sampling resolution. CRML’s electrical mapping systems allow measurements in three dimensions for better understanding of how the heart's structure contributes to arrhythmias in normal and diseased states. Optical mapping systems relate fluorescence measurements from the surface of isolated hearts to underlying cellular level potentials. CRML funding comes from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, American Heart Association, the Whitaker Foundation, and corporate partners. The Problem CRML’s primary objective is to investigate the causes and potential treatments of cardiac arrhythmias. To accomplish this objective, CRML researchers obtain large amounts of electrophysiologic data from various modalities, or data sources. Among others, these data sources include a 528-channel electrical mapping system, an optical mapping system using CCD cameras, and cardiac MRI. Analyzing and visualizing this data requires significant image and signal processing techniques, coupled with advanced graphical capabilities. According to R. Kyle Justice, a CRML programmer/analyst, “We needed a software package that would facilitate both qualitative and quantitative understanding of the mechanisms of arrhythmias. We needed powerful software that combined advanced visualization tools with heavy-duty number-crunching functionality.” The Solution CRML’s search for a data analysis and visualization solution led them to PV-WAVE, the flagship product from Visual Numerics, Inc. PV-WAVE is an open environment for developing and deploying Visual Data Analysis (VDA) applications that help customers turn raw data into meaningful information. These VDA applications let users visualize and manipulate complex or extremely large data sets to detect and display patterns, trends, anomalies, and other vital information. PV-WAVE includes hundreds of mathematical and statistical analysis routines from Visual Numerics’ IMSL Numerical Libraries, as well as image processing, signal processing, mapping, and general data manipulation features. Engineers, scientists, business analysts, and software developers access this robust and extensive set of functions through an array-oriented programming language. PV-WAVE also includes advanced graphical user interface development tools that facilitate the construction of intuitive front-ends, making the product’s functionality easily accessible to others in an organization. When asked why CRML selected PV-WAVE, Justice said: “I had prior experience with PV WAVE while I was doing medical imaging research in graduate school. It is a very strong programming language, offering a great combination of visualization techniques, numerics, and ease-of-use. And PV-WAVE's inclusion of the IMSL libraries makes the software an excellent choice in terms of reliability.” Benefits & Results Justice cites increased productivity as the leading benefit of using PV-WAVE. “It significantly reduces our development time, which makes everyone more productive,” Justice said. “We rarely have exact specifications for a particular piece of software that we need. The software tends to grow right along with the research. Analysis begets analysis. PV-WAVE is perfect for this interactive, dynamic process because of its flexible programming environment. This would be a nightmare for C/C++ developers. We need everything from small and large-scale applications to ‘on the fly’ command-line programming. And from time to time, we need to call external C programs, which is a snap with PV-WAVE.” In addition to PV-WAVE’s flexibility, Justice also likes the software’s ease-of-use and cross platform portability. “GUI-development is quite easy using the built-in Wave Widgets,” he said. “I have found that having a user-friendly interface is the best way to keep everyone happy and productive. In addition, the cross-platform compatibility of PV-WAVE makes life a lot easier for us. We have Sun and SGI workstations as well as PCs running Linux and Windows. Our programs run seamlessly on all of these platforms 99 percent of the time.” Client Satisfaction Justice said he is a highly satisfied PV-WAVE user for many reasons. “The biggest thing PV WAVE brings to the table is more efficient analysis,” Justice said. “This is accomplished because of the software’s three most significant features, in my opinion: rapid application development, flexible programming environment, and cross-platform compatibility. That last point should not be overlooked. The fact that Visual Numerics offers a departmental license is great because it allows us to put PV-WAVE on all of our different architectures, including desktop PC, laptops, and workstations.” Justice added that he is also “excited” about the new VTK capabilities available in PV-WAVE 7.5, the latest version of the software released in August 2001. VTK (The Visualization ToolKit) is an open source, freely available software system developed by Clifton Park, New York-based Kitware, Inc., that provides 3D graphics, image processing, and advanced visualization techniques using OpenGL. Included in PV-WAVE 7.5 are more than two dozen new functions that allow access to Kitware’s VTK, both at a high-level for ease-of-use, and through low-level routines that facilitate the creation of more complex, specialized visualizations. With the 7.5 release, PV-WAVE will provide the high-level 3D interactive visualization techniques commonly associated with OpenGL without burdening its users with having to learn hundreds of low-level commands. The integration of VTK into PV-WAVE provides the optimum solution. PV-WAVE users are now able to produce accelerated graphics in their applications without having to learn a new programming paradigm or understand the intricacies of OpenGL. Not only is he happy with PV-WAVE as a product, but Justice also expressed satisfaction with Visual Numerics as a company. “I have been very satisfied with Visual Numerics as a whole,” he said. “My sales rep and tech support personnel have been wonderful. I took a training course in Boulder several years ago and it was a great experience.”
Editor’s Notes: PV-WAVE and IMSL are registered trademarks of Visual Numerics. All other company, product or brand names are the property of their respective owners. |