slicerheart_4dflow

WARNING: This implementation is a draft, under active refinement.

Draft Implementation of Filters for 4D flow MRI processing by the SlicerHeart project:

• background phase (eddy current) correction: ols, msac, wrls, war+msac, arto
• velocity anti-aliasing (phase unwrapping): temporal, Laplacian 3D/4D, Laplacian then temporal
• multi-venc (dual-/triple-venc) unwrapping (DRAFT, phantom-tested): sdv, odv, stepwise, schnell
• noise masking and PC-MRA
• divergence-free filtering and denoising: fdm, relaxed, leray, dfw
• plane flow quantification and mass-conservation QA
• pathlines (numpy RK4 or VTK particle tracer) and centerline-based plane placement
• derived hemodynamics: vorticity, helicity, kinetic energy, viscous energy loss
• wall shear stress (TAWSS, OSI) from the lumen segmentation
• relative pressure by the pressure Poisson equation
• per-study quality report (venc adequacy, noise, residual offset, mass conservation) as JSON and Markdown
• analytic phantoms (Poiseuille, Womersley, stenosis, bifurcation, thorax, valve jet) and a phase-contrast forward model (noise, aliasing, partial volume, dephasing, multi-venc) for tests without data download

Only numpy and scipy are required; VTK is needed for pathline export and the VTK particle tracer. Methods, defaults and literature references are described in docs/FLOWFILTERS_README.md, docs/BACKGROUND.md and docs/METHODS_DRAFT.md.

Installation

pip install slicerheart_4dflow

In 3D Slicer: slicer.util.pip_install("slicerheart_4dflow").

Usage

import slicerheart_4dflow as f4d

# encoded velocity components, each aliased at its venc
corrected, info = f4d.correct_background_phase(velocity_t, magnitude_t, method="war+msac")
unwrapped = f4d.unwrap_velocity(corrected, venc, voxel_to_world, method="laplacian_then_temporal")
# world velocity components
velocity_world_t = unwrapped @ encoding_to_world.T
filtered, infos = f4d.divergence_free_sequence(velocity_world_t, lumen_mask, voxel_to_world, method="fdm")
flow = f4d.plane_flow(filtered, voxel_to_world, centre=(10.0, -32.0, 54.0), normal=(0.0, 0.3, 1.0),
                      radius=15.0, lumen_mask=lumen_mask)["flow"]

Conventions (see geometry.py):

• Image arrays are indexed [k, j, i] (i varies fastest), as returned by ITK GetArrayFromImage or slicer.util.arrayFromVolume: velocity (nt, nk, nj, ni, 3), magnitude (nt, nk, nj, ni), lumen mask (nk, nj, ni) bool.
• voxel_to_world is a 4x4 homogeneous matrix that maps voxel coordinates (i, j, k, 1) to world coordinates (x, y, z, 1) in mm. Any affine mapping is supported: anisotropic, oblique, flipped or even sheared voxel axes. f4d.voxel_to_world_matrix(spacing, origin, directions) builds one.
• The world coordinate system can be any (e.g. LPS or RAS); the package makes no assumption about it, the inputs only need to be consistent.
• Velocity vectors have world components (vx, vy, vz) in the coordinate system of voxel_to_world. Unwrapping is the exception: it must be applied to the components as encoded, because each encoding direction aliases at its own venc.
• Points (plane centres, seeds, centerlines, pathline points) are world (x, y, z) mm; plane normals are world vectors.

Reading data prepared in 3D Slicer

slicer_io.py reads the files that 3D Slicer writes, so data can be processed without Slicer and without a DICOM reader. It needs the clinical extra (pip install slicerheart_4dflow[clinical], which installs pynrrd).

• Formats:
  • volumes and volume sequences (.nrrd, .seq.nrrd), with vector components converted by the measurement frame
  • segmentations (.seg.nrrd), including several layers and cropped extents
  • plane markups (.mrk.json)
  • whole 4D flow test cases exported by SlicerHeart Import 4D Flow (see tests/clinical/README.md)
• World frame: arrays follow the conventions above. The world frame is the file's (LPS), or RAS with world="RAS".

f4d.dataset_cases("D:/Data/4Dflow/_test_cases_anonymized_")      # ["Patient0001", ...]
case = f4d.load_case("D:/Data/4Dflow/_test_cases_anonymized_", "Patient0004")
case["velocity_raw_t"], case["magnitude_t"], case["voxel_to_world"], case["venc_mm_s"], case["lumen"], case["planes"]
lumen, voxel_to_world = f4d.read_segmentation("lumen.seg.nrrd", segment="lumen")

Development

pip install -e ".[test]"
python -m pytest

Tests that use an aortic CFD example download it into tests/data on first use, from the TestingData release (see tests/README.md).

Test results (the regression metrics of the last run) are written to .test-reports/ at the repository root, which is not committed; set SLICERHEART_4DFLOW_TEST_REPORT_DIR to use another folder. The clinical tests and the baselines kept with the clinical data are described in tests/clinical/README.md.

Releasing

Versions are derived from git tags. Publishing a GitHub release with a tag such as v0.1.0 runs the tests, builds the sdist and wheel, and uploads them to PyPI (.github/workflows/publish.yml). This requires a PyPI trusted publisher set up for project slicerheart_4dflow, repository JolleyLab/slicerheart_4dflow, workflow publish.yml, environment pypi.

License

MIT