ROVER is a tool combining several functionalities related to efficient evaluation of tomographic image data. It's emphasis is on (human and small animal) PET, but many features are useful with other imaging modalities (i.e. CT, MRI) as well.
ROVER targets especially the problem of quantitative 3D ROI evaluation of PET investigations (dynamic as well as whole body) in general including the ability of fast and accurate volume determination, and the problem of keeping track of changes in ROI size and tracer accumulation (e.g. SUVs) during oncological follow up studies. ROVER is able to load and process an arbitrary number of data sets (limited only by available RAM) and allows rapid inter-study navigation.
ROVER combines versatile image viewing (and image export) capabilities (including a"lightbox" viewer, an orthogonal viewer, animated coupled multi-study maximum intensity displays incorporating ROI rendering in separate color table), tools for rapid automatic 3D ROI determination (including segmentation of user defined image sub-volumes) and a fast coregistration engine.
The ROls detected by ROVER can be directly send to radiation treatment planning systems for PET supported treatment planning. In addition the ROIs can be exported to data files (XML and flat text) for subsequent cumulative data evaluations. Care has been taken to allow easy access of these files with commercial software (e.g. MATLAB, IDL, Excel) as well as with many standard OPEN SOURCE tools (e.g. gnuplot, octave, R).
(1) PET-Zentrum, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Germany
(2) Klinik und Poliklinik für Nuklearmedizin, Universitätsklinikum Carl Gustav Carus, Dresden, Germany