Abstract
Image processing and visualization are very important in the medical field. This is clearly demonstrated by the wide variety of imaging schemes used such as magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound imaging, x-ray imaging (computed tomography, CT), single photon emission tomography, and positron emission tomography. All of these modalities produce 2-D images. It is evident that image processing and visualization routines could expedite research in the field. In fact, if routines that already exist could be reused, it would further assist the progress. Environments that provide all the functionality required are not available (aside from the fact that all the functionality might not be understood, yet). A visual programming environment (VPE) tailored to the integration of all needed functions, through the combination of the best features of different packages into a single unified interface, was the main goal to be accomplished by the design of VMIPVS. Important issues addressed by VMIPVS are interoperability, data conversion, display formats, and extendibility.