Handheld 3D imaging system for medical applications relies on Qt Commercial
May 8, 2012 — An innovative handheld 3D imaging system for use in medical applications has been developed with the support of Digia, Qt Commercial. The Eykona® Wound Measurement System, created by Eykona Technologies, provides clinicians with an objective and repeatable measure of the volume of wounds, allowing comparison and monitoring of the healing process. Qt Commercial assisted Eykona in significantly reducing the project completion time.
Qt is an established user interface (UI) and cross-platform application framework used in the automotive, medical, aerospace and industrial automation industries, among many others. Digia, Qt Commercial is a pioneer in the commercial development, support, services and exclusive licensor of Qt for desktop and embedded development.
Eykona identified an unmet need for the accurate measurement and clinical characterisation of hard-to-heal wounds such as diabetic and pressure ulcers. Existing techniques estimated the volume of wounds – the change of which is an important indicator of the healing process – by multiplying an area estimate with a depth measurement obtained from a probe. This method is both inaccurate and difficult to replicate. Eykona used patented technology, based on research at the University of Oxford, to develop a handheld imaging system that produces a full colour 3D model of a wound that can be stored in the patient’s treatment record and shared to enable remote assessment.
Having evaluated a number of graphical UI and application frameworks, Eykona selected Qt Commercial due to its cross-platform support; widespread adoption, meaning that developers were readily available; and a highly positive experience during evaluation. The company chose to work with Qt Commercial, preferring the support and licensing benefits to the open source route. However, the developers still made extensive use of the online knowledge base of the wider Qt community.
Commenting on his team’s experience with Qt Commercial, Eykona CTO Dr. James Paterson said: “We found the Qt Commercial technology to be superior to other application development frameworks. It is more flexible and has better support.” He added, “Qt Commercial’s cross-platform support was especially valuable. It allowed us to develop our embedded Linux application before the hardware platform was available – we simply developed under Windows and then directly compiled for the Linux platform. Without Qt Commercial we would have had to add 6-9 months to our development time to initial release.”
A video describing Eykona’s use of the Qt Commercial application framework can be viewed at http://youtu.be/ObHtZ4mnN1I and also downloaded at http://bit.ly/KJDRvk.
Further information on Eykona Technologies and the Eykona Wound Measurement System can be found at www.3dwoundimaging.com
About Digia, Qt Commercial
Digia, the software powerhouse listed in the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki exchange (DIG1V), is the worldwide exclusive commercial licensor of Qt. Digia has over 10 years of worldwide Qt application, UI development, testing, UX design services and consulting experience. Digia is a recognized global leader in the Qt ecosystem with hundreds of certified Qt developers and committed to the future of Qt. Digia’s pioneering Qt Commercial product and services offering provides commercial developers and companies a one-stop shop for all Qt development needs on desktop and embedded platforms. Digia operates in China, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and USA. http://qt.digia.com or www.digia.com.