Biomedical computing and visualization software environments

• Published in: Communications of the ACM Vol. 47; no. 11; pp. 64 - 71
• Main Authors: Johnson, Chris R., MacLeod, Rob, Parker, Steven G., Weinstein, David
• Format: Magazine Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Association for Computing Machinery 01.11.2004
• Subjects: Biomedical research; Computer architecture; Integrated software; Problem solving; Software; User interface; Visualization; United States > US
• ISSN: 0001-0782; 1557-7317
• DOI: 10.1145/1029496.1029528

The current selection of computational tools is increasing so quickly that navigating and choosing from among them has become its own challenge. The need to integrate software is especially great when scientists seek to build models that span spatial or temporal scales or that cross physical systems. Problem-solving environments (PSE) provide a natural platform for integrating and leveraging multi-disciplinary expertise to create complete systems for biomedical computing. Such systems solve the challenge of interfacing disparate elements while also providing a level of functional abstraction researchers need in dealing with complex software systems. PSEs also provide infrastructure for integrating computation knowledge. PSEs may incorporate a number of specific elements, including: 1. knowledge of the relevant discipline(s), 2. the most useful computational techniques, algorithms, and data structures, 3. the associated programming techniques, 4. the relevant human-computer interface design principles, 5. the applicable visualization and imaging techniques, and 6. methods for mapping the computations to various computer architectures.