TubeTK/OpenIGTLink

Introduction

OpenIGTLink is a communication protocol designed to work on the TCP/IP application layer to handle image, tracking data, transform, device control and monitoring command, and other user-defined data types. An example use case is a computer interfaced to a tracking device, gathers pose information of surgical instruments and packages the information in an OpenIGTLink protocol and sends the data over a network connection to a quantitative imaging workstation that runs

Workflow

Client side

1. Establish connection with server side ( Example: igtl::ClientSocket )
2. Generate OpenIGTLink message (data-to-be-sent ) and package in Open IGT Link format. (Example: igtl::TransformMessage )

Types of OpenIGTLink message

Version 1

1. Transform ( igtlTransformMessage )
2. Image ( igtlImageMessage )
3. Position ( igtlPositionMessage )
4. Status message ( igtlStatusMessage )

Reference

1. NAMIC OpenIGTLink wiki page