Custom-made modules of the Explorer programme package for image/volume processing

Contemporary biomedical imaging is migrating from image analysis to sample volume analysis, since rendering and visualization of an object's surface and/or volume give a better insight into the studied structure and functioning of its constituents, and thus better support the diagnosis of the state-of-the-art of these constituents. Therefore, classical software visualization and image processing packages like Explorer (from SGI, formerly NAG) should be updated and enhanced for analysis of 3D volumes based on inspection of a stack of serial sections of the object under study. We present the following types of software modules we have developed: input/output; 2D and 3D binary and grey-tone mathematical morphology; 3D Gaussian filtering; and estimation of geometrical parameters in 2D and 3D by using stereology and Euclidean distance mapping. Examples of new module applications in biomedical research illustrate the results.