A Generic Layer Based Approach for Design of Software for Medical Imaging Systems

Advances in modern medical imaging technologies such as X-Ray, Computed Tomography (CT), Ultra Sound (US) imaging, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Positron emission tomography (PET) and Single Photon Emission Computed tomography (SPECT) enable better disease diagnoses and treatment assessment. This paper explains a layered architecture suitable for design and development of application software for medical imaging devices. The generic nature of medical imaging devices in the process of data acquisition, signals processing and image reconstruction is the major inspiration behind conceptualization of this architecture. Also the currently available medical imaging software follow a multi-stage interlinked processing workflow which can be directly mapped to the layered software approach. Layered software approach facilitates quick and easy customization, configuration and feature enhancements of the medical imaging software. The architecture facilitates the academic community or researchers to build end user solutions based on research outputs, which can be directly integrated and used in the main software workflow. This indeed provides opportunity for utilizing the technical expertise available for implementation of algorithms which can directly be used to interface with medical imaging devices. The architecture discussed in this paper, has been employed in the design of MRI imaging software as a case study to further illustrate its applicability in signal generation, data acquisition and image reconstruction.