1. User Manual
The Openwater FUSPlan application is written in Matlab as it uses Matlab based simulation, and the driving electronics also utilize Matlab to set up the driving sequences. Therefore, when running the FUSPlan application, Matlab will automatically be started in the background. It is important that no other Matlab instances are running that have reserved access to the Verasonics using the ‘activate’ command.
One can either open the Matlab and navigate to the repository folder and type ‘startapp’ in the command window of Matlab or by double clicking the fusplan.bat file in the same folder. Application Window The majority of the window contains the slice and 3D views of the subject MRI. The panel on the right hand side has 4 different pages which can be switched between by selecting the tab at the top.
Sessions are imported and loaded by clicking the Import or Load Buttons, which brings up a dialogue to import or load a study. When complete, the Subject and Session fields are populated in the fields below.
Data can be imported from other systems (e.g. neuronavigation) via companion applications.
Loading a previously created session If the user selects “Load”, they will be prompted to select a subject and session from the Database:
Once a session has been selected, the software will load the session, along with any simulated results in the GUI. Depending on how many foci and targets are in the session, the loading process may take up to a minute.
Once the session is selected the application loads the medical image, targets, and ultrasound probe location into the GUI. It is then possible to review the medical image and view the target location from within the application. The Display Area takes up the majority of the application screen, except for the controls on the right-hand side. The volume is shown in four panels. The first three (left-to-right, top-to-bottom) axes show slices through the volume. When the volume is an MRI and the perspective is “Full Head”, these correspond to the Sagittal, Frontal/Coronal, and Horizontal/Transverse planes, respectively . The position where all three slice planes intersect is considered the active point in the app. Each slice is color-coded (shown as the border color) so that the positions of the orthogonal slices are shown in each plot as a colored crosshair, intersecting at the active point. The bottom-right axis shows a 3D view of the three orthogonal slices, and can be rotated by clicking and dragging with the mouse. The 3D view also shows the transducer, rendered as a semi transparent grid, typically in cyan.
The active treatment Target is also rendered as a semitransparent sphere in the 3D axis with a set radius, and is shown in the slice axes as the cross section of the sphere when the slice is close enough to intersect the sphere, or as a black crosshair otherwise:
The Review tab controls what view is shown in the main panel, provides controls for adjusting the brightness, contrast and opacity of the layers of data, and shows information about the currently selected point.
The Perspective dropdown controls the orientation of the coordinate system (which sets the orientation of the slice planes and the limits of the visible volume). Currently, the user can select between “Full Head” for the entire head, and “Simulation Grid”, which is centered on the transducer, and includes only the sub-volume that will be used in simulation.
The View dropdown controls which layers of scalar data are shown in the displayed volume. Before a simulation has been run, only “MRI” will be available. After a simulation has been run, “PNP Overlay” and “Intensity Overlay” will be available, so show the pressure and intensity data as semitransparent color overlays on top of the MRI data.
The Layer Settings dropdown controls which of the visible layers the next set of controls is activated for editing
The Colorbar includes multiple controls for adjusting the appearance of the active layer. The vertical sliders on the left and right of the colorbar set the opacity and color limits. They can be adjusted by dragging either endpoint or by dragging the entire slider bar. If the color limits are reduced from the full range, the colorbar will retain the same vertical limits, and show values above and below the color limits as the color at those limits. To adjust the visible range, the numeric fields to the right of the colorbar can be edited, or the “Auto” button selected to restore the default limits.
The next section of the review tab contains a table, which shows the coordinates of the point at the intersection of the slices, and the values of the visible layers at that point:
At the bottom of the review tabs are two buttons to snap slices to either the treatment target or the perspective origin.
The Plan tab contains information and controls pertaining to generation of a treatment plan for a particular target:
A dropdown is available if more than one Treatment Plan is available in the database.
A dropdown is available if more than one treatment target is present in the Session. A status indicator will show if the treatment target is within the targeting area of the transducer, as specified in the treatment plan.
Information about the treatment plan is shown as a table.
The “Plan Treatment” button will initiate treatment planning, which involves computation of the delays and apodizations needed to aim acoustic energy at the target (for the specific target and transducer positions and the material properties as segmented from the MRI data), simulation of the transmitted acoustic field, and estimation of the characteristic parameters of the output beamplots.
Once a simulation is complete, the main Panel View will switch to a PNP Overlay view, and the treatment solution table will be populated.
The treatment tab allows for the selection of the target system and initiation of a treatment
The treatment tab contains a dropdown to select the active system (if more than one system is detected)
A table shows information about the system
A button initiates treatment if a valid solution has been generated
The treatment controller depends on the connected system, but generally will include a start button, a progress bar, and a button to freeze or abort the treatment.
