3. Volume Data

This CD-ROM contains a software package, Vinci, which has been developed for visualization and analysis of the kind of volume data provided on this CD-ROM. Vinci runs on Windows NT/2000/XP and does not require any installation. An interactive tutorial is available: Guided Tour, Vinci’s online help can be opened with the <F1> key.

For viewing the data on other platforms than MS Windows, we refer you to Volume Data Formats.

Please bear in mind that the speed of your CD-ROM drive is the limiting factor when you load the example data. It may take several seconds before Vinci is fully started.

The VolumeData directory on the CD-ROM contains four kind of files:

*.v
image data in ECAT7 format
*.vpx
a Vinci Project file, containing information on how to load and display (reslice) a set of image volumes
*.cmd
a simple batch script that uses the Vinci version on the CD-ROM to load a particular Vinci project. The links below can be used to execute the scripts directly (and open Vinci with the appropriate patient data), however, this will only work from within the NeuroPET browser.
*.txt
information on a particular image file needed for viewing it with certain visualization packages (not needed by Vinci).

3.1 Normal average resting brain glucose metabolism

VolumeData/Average-Normal-FDG.cmd MS Windows XP/2000/NT only

In orthoview window A, the average spatially normalized FDG uptake of 12 normal volunteers (mean age 60 years, same data as in fig. 3.1 of the book) is shown. The co-registered and averaged T1-weighted MRI data are shown in window C, while window B displays them in fusion mode. You can navigate the cross cursor through the whole data set using the mouse. Click the left button to display new orthogonal views (always transaxial, coronal, and sagittal). The color scale is in arbitrary units that are proportional to CMRglc. The highest metabolic rates are observed in putamen and in precuneus. Most other gray matter structures have slightly lower metabolism. Metabolism is somewhat lower in mesial temporal lobe and in brain stem. Lowest metabolic rates are seen in white matter.

3.2 FDG PET and co-registered MRI in Alzheimer disease (AD)

VolumeData/AD.cmd MS Windows XP/2000/NT only

Displayed in the same arrangement as above, these are FDG PET and co-registered MRI data from a patient with mild AD, which are also presented as a videoclip (see above). To ensure anonymity, the facial structures have been deleted on the data sets.

3.3 Glioma studied with 11C-methionine and activation PET

VolumeData/Glioma.cmd MS Windows XP/2000/NT only

These are the volume data sets of a preoperative brain tumor study, demonstrated also in the videoclip above and in the book as fig. 2.30. Four co-registered data sets are presented in the orthoview windows (A: contrast-enhanced MRI, C: 11C-methionine PET, D: language activation study, E: motor activation study). In window B a fusion image of all modalities is presented.

3.4 Volume Data Formats

All image data provided in the VolumeData directory have been converted to ECAT7 format, the standard data format for CTI/Siemens ECAT scanners.

For displaying the image volumes with software that does not support the ECAT7 format directly, you need to know the dimensions and pixel sizes of the individual images. We have listed all necessary information in text files which (apart from ending in “.txt”) have the same file names as the corresponding image files.

The first 1536 Bytes of an ECAT7 file contain header information, the data type of the image part is 16-bit signed, Big-Endian Byte Order.

A popular software package for visualization of image data is ImageJ, developed at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, USA and is freely available here: http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/index.html.

The following screenshot shows the settings necessary for loading the file “B-motor.v” (from the VolumeData directory of the CD-ROM) in ImageJ.