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Due to rapid developments in the research areas of medical imaging, medical image processing and robotics, computer assistance is no longer restricted to diagnostics and surgical planning but has been expanded to surgical and radiological interventions. From a software engineering point of view, the systems for image-guided therapy (IGT) are highly complex. To address this issue, we presented an open source extension to the well-known Medical Imaging Interaction Toolkit (MITK) for developing IGT systems, called MITK-IGT. The contribution of this paper is two-fold: Firstly, we extended MITK-IGT such that it (1) facilitates the handling of navigation tools, (2) provides reusable graphical user interface (UI) components, and (3) features standardized exception handling. Secondly, we developed a software prototype for computer-assisted needle insertions, using the new features, and tested it with a new Tabletop field generator (FG) for the electromagnetic tracking system NDI Aurora ®. To our knowledge, we are the first to have integrated this new FG into a complete navigation system and have conducted tests under clinical conditions. In conclusion, we enabled simplified development of imageguided therapy software and demonstrated the utilizability of applications developed with MITK-IGT in the clinical workflow.

Flocks of migratory birds are very often using geographic structures like rivers, valleys or coast lines for orientation. Wherever the preferred migration routes are crossing the approach corridor of an airport there is an increased risk of bird strike. Flocks of birds crossing the runway corridor of the new runway Northwest of the Frankfurt airport are kept under surveillance now with in total three watch towers located at the river Main which in this case is the preferred used line of orientation. Each of the watch towers carries an early warning system which consists of two pairs of stereoscopic thermal imaging cameras sensitive in the mid wavelength infrared range (3 - 5 m). A stereoscopic pair measures the swarm size, direction of flight and velocity in real time and with high accuracy. From these results an early warning is derived under all relevant weather conditions. The fixed focus thermal imaging cameras are thermally compensated and designed for ultra low image distortion. Each stereoscopic pair is aligned in the sub-pixel range and is controlled by a reference beam to ensure that the alignment is preserved under all environmental conditions and over a very long time. The technical concept is discussed and the design of the realized warning system at the Frankfurt airport is presented.