User-centered development of medical visualization applications: Flexible interaction through communicating application objects

Today's software systems for medical visualization still suffer from a shortage of practical applications due to their lack of usability with respect to a large variety of users with different computer-skills and experiences. Furthermore, progress is often hampered by the lack of adequate software tools that allow research ideas to be rapidly accomplished, evaluated, and brought into routine. We developed an integrated software environment that is distinct because it, on the one hand, provides an application-builder toolbox for medical diagnosis and therapy. And, on the other hand, it allows for the development, integration, and user-centered evaluation of existing and new interaction techniques in 2-D, 3-D, and Virtual Reality (VR). The environment's interaction support is based on communicating application objects that employ a sophisticated message-based inter-object communication. In addition, the system contains a component for user-adapted interaction and system support. The system has been used for several clinical applications which are briefly described at the end of this paper.