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Slicer-SOFA: Integration of SOFA with 3D Slicer for Advanced Medical Simulations

Key Investigators

• Rafael Palomar (Oslo University Hospital and NTNU, Norway)
• Paul Baksic (Inria, France)
• Steve Pieper (Isomics Inc., USA)
• Jean-Christophe Fillion-Robin (Kitware Inc., USA)
• Andras Lasso (Queen's University, Canada)
• Sam Horvath (Kitware Inc, USA)

Project Description

The SlicerSOFA project aims to integrate the SOFA (Simulation Open Framework Architecture) with 3D Slicer, enhancing the capabilities of medical simulations by providing advanced physics and interaction models. For this PW we aim to consolidate the first release through the 3D Slicer Extension Manager and establish a dialogue with the community to bring this project forward.

Objective

1. Objective A. Engage with the 3D Slicer and SOFA communities on the future development of Slicer-SOFA.

2. Objective B. Resolve existing bugs and improve the stability of the integration.
   • Slicer hangs after starting and stopping the simulation a few times
   • SofaIGTLink Plugin Fails to Load on Windows Build
3. Objective C. Expand the functionality by adding new SOFA plugins and abstraction layers to the base Slicer-SOFA setup.
   • Add SOFA default demo as Slicer module
   • Bump SOFA to v24.12
   • Adding new plugins to base Slicer-SOFA
   • Testing and sample data still relying on RafaelPalomar/SlicerSOFATestingData repository
   • Add abstraction layer for simplified SOFA scene generation
4. Objective D. Implement a mechanism to specify a custom SOFA root directory via environment variables.
   • Add feature to specify custom SOFA_ROOT
   • Enable use of external SOFA and SOFA plugins

Approach and Plan

1. Develop a mechanism in the SofaEnvironment to check for an environment variable SLICER_SOFA_ROOT and use it if available.
2. Investigate and fix the reported bugs, ensuring the functionality of components like SparseGridSimulation and SofaIGTLink plugin.
3. Integrate additional SOFA plugins (e.g., BeamAdapter, Shell)
4. Update the SOFA framework to the latest version to maintain compatibility and access new features.

Progress and Next Steps

1. Resolve existing bugs and improve the stability of the integration
   • New issue Found: Problem loading SlicerSOFA on MS Windows installations with existing SOFA installations. (PR#43)
2. Update and expand SlicerSOFA
   • Update SOFA and SOFA Python 24.12 (PR#42)
   • Add new SOFA plugins (PR#42)

Illustrations

No response

Background and References

• SlicerSOFA GitHub Repository
• SOFA Framework
• 3D Slicer
• Slicer-SOFA PW 41 Project
• Slicer-SOFA PW 40 Project