An enhanced version of ITK-SNAP for preoperative inspection and refinement of surface mesh models

Abstract

This paper describes a modified and enhanced version of the GPL-licensed, ITK-/VTK-based segmentation software ITK-SNAP. The modified software is entitled IMPPACT-SNAP and was motivated by the requirement for preoperative inspection and manual refinement of surface mesh liver segmentations in the research project IMPPACT. In this context, the liver segmentations are used for simulating the radiofrequency ablation of liver tumors to optimize the outcome of the treatment. The implemented modifications add the functionality of visualizing and manually deforming surface mesh segmentations and improve the navigational features of the software. The result is an easy-to-use tool that builds on ITK-SNAP's user-oriented GUI and framework.