Annotation Concept

Table of Contents

• Annotations
• General Architecture
  • Annotation
  • AbstractAnnotationRenderer
    • ManualPlacementAnnotationRenderer
    • LayoutAnnotationRenderer
  • AnnotationUtils

Annotations

The annotations in MITK are a simple way to display additional information on the render windows. A class, deriving from mitk::Annotation represents an arbitrary 2D or 3D object that can be rendered as an Annotation. This can for example be used for the annotation of 3D points or to Annotation despriptions in the window corners. Instances of the MicroService mitk::AbstractAnnotationRenderer are used to add the annotations to the renderwindows, updating them and depending on their implementation, organize them in a layout. This module contains implementations for mitk::AbstractAnnotationRenderer as well as mitk::Annotation. Currently, the following features are realized within the Annotation module.

1. 2D and 3D textelements are already defined in the Annotation module and are using VTK to create custom annotations.
2. 2D and 3D annotations can be placed freely by providing a display position
3. 2D annotations can be placed in a layout, which organizes the annotations in the display corners.

General Architecture

The mitk::Annotation can be implemented using a custom rendering framework like VTK. In this diagram, the vtkAnnotation is shown as the superclass for all Annotations which use the vtk framework for rendering. The AnnotationManager can be registered to several BaseRenderer instances in order to call the update method of each Annotation during the rendering phase of the renderer. It also manages the respective Layouters which are used to manage the placement of a group of Annotations.

Annotation

The mitk::Annotation is an abstract class that can manage property lists like the mitk::DataNode and provides the interfaces to the methods AddToBaseRenderer, AddToRenderer, RemoveFromBaseRenderer RemoveFromRenderer and Update. The subclasses of the mitk::Annotation have to implement these methods in order to provide the functionality of an Annotation. There are already a few implementations of mitk::Annotation which are using VTK as a rendering framework to display the Annotations. In order to show an Annotation, it has to be registered as a MicroService.

AbstractAnnotationRenderer

The AbstractAnnotationRenderer is the base class for all types of AnnotationRenderers, which are used for the management of multiple annotations in a specific BaseRenderer. For each BaseRenderer, an AnnotationRenderer is registered as a MicroService, using the type and the renderer name as a unique identifier. This way it is possible to keep the Annotations for a specific BaseRenderer even if this renderer is temporarily not existent (e.g. when a RenderWindow was closed).

Implementations of the AbstractAnnotationRenderer are using the us::ServiceTracker in order to manage all registered Annotations and to listen to the events which are thrown if a new Annotation is registered, if an Annotation was unregistered or if it was modified.

ManualPlacementAnnotationRenderer

Using the ManualPlacementAnnotationRenderer, allows for a simple placement of Annotations. The Annotation manages its placement internally or using the Position2D / Position3D properties.

LayoutAnnotationRenderer

The LayoutAnnotationRenderer allows automatic placement in the RenderWindow corners and sorts the Annotations by a specified priority.

AnnotationUtils

mitk::AnnotationUtils is a collection of static convenience functions, for the registration of AnnotationRenderers and to request certain registered Annotations.