ARRA- Adding Deconvolution Algorithms to ITK

Principal Investigator: Marc Niethammer
Funding Agency: National Library of Medicine
Agency Number: N/A

Abstract
ITK offers many algorithms suitable for analyzing images from fluorescence microscopy, an important imaging modality in the life sciences. However, blur from out-of-focus light reduces the quantitative accuracy of algorithms that do not take it into account. ITK currently lacks deconvolution algorithms to reduce this blur, limiting the impact of ITK on the life scientist community. We propose to 1) implement the four most-used deconvolution algorithms in ITK and exploit multi-core systems and graphics processing units to accelerate them, 2) implement theoretical parametric models of widefield point-spread functions that can be fit to a measured point-spread function using an adapter interface to ITK’s registration framework, 3) curate example images from our collaborators for inclusion in ITK examples and tests, and 4) disseminate the algorithms through both the ITK library and a new version of ImageSurfer, a visualization and analysis program designed specifically for understanding fluorescence microscopy imagesthrough ImageSurfer, Slicer3, and BioImageXD, visualization and image analysis programs with large user bases.