TubeTK/OpenIGTLink

Introduction

OpenIGTLink is a communication protocol designed to work on the TCP/IP application layer to handle image, tracking data, transform, device control and monitoring command, and other user-defined data types. Example usecases

1. A computer running IGSTK based navigation application and a computer running Slicer are connected using a network cable. The IGSTK application gathers pose information of surgical instruments and packages them in OpenIGTLink message format and then sends the data over network connection using OpenIGTLink protocol to the computer running Slicer for visualization and/or further processing
2. A computer running tubetk based vessel segmentation application is connected to the BrainLab VectorVision machine. VectorVisison fetches Ultrasound images, packages them as OpenIGTLink image message and sends it to the computer running the tubetk application.

Description

Workflow

Client

1. Establish connection with server side ( Example: igtl::ClientSocket )
2. Generate OpenIGTLink message (data-to-be-sent ) and package in Open IGT Link format. (Example: igtl::TransformMessage )
3. Send data through TCP/IP socket connection

Types of OpenIGTLink message

Version 1

1. Transform ( igtlTransformMessage )
2. Image ( igtlImageMessage )
3. Position ( igtlPositionMessage )
4. Status message ( igtlStatusMessage )

Reference

1. NAMIC OpenIGTLink wiki page