The Canon Bio-Technology Project: Volumetric Medical Imaging
Abstract
Working with Canon's medical team for ten weeks gave me great insight into
which direction I wanted to take in the field of computer science. I realized that working
in an individualized programmer's setting was not for me; there was not enough
interaction with other employees to satisfy my comfort level. At the same time I was
always interested in finding ways of combining my two interests in computer science and
medicine. I enjoyed the work I completed for Canon and I learned a great deal about the
advances in x-ray imaging.
The projects I completed taught me new skills that covered different aspects of
computer science. The first project, Tomcat, gave me a chance to understand how web
servers work. This helped me to understand how many of the web pages on the Internet
function. By completing this project I had the knowledge necessary to set up my own
server to work with a web application. This introduced web development and its
applications as a possible career. The second project I worked on, Web Archive Files
(*.war) also served as an extension for understanding web development. This was an
important project because it helped me understand how the Internet could be used as a
tool for research. I also gained knowledge about file structures and their hierarchies.
The volume rendering software and the conversion program allowed me to work
with a variety of topics from binary code to reading spec files to programming. I was
given the opportunity to take two-dimensional images, break them down at the binary
level, and rebuild them as three-dimensional volume rendering images (voxel files). By
completion of the program, I had used a variety of theories I had learned through my
education, which I was able to see implemented in the project.