From: Andries van der Leij
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2006 5:59 PM
To: 'freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu'
Subject: Freesurfer and Grid computing

 

Dear Freesurfer community,

 

I’m a PHD student at the university of Amsterdam and I’m currently investigating the possibilities to streamline our MRI data processing stream. Next summer we’ll obtain a research-only scanner. I’m trying to push the group to also invest in computing power and am currently investigating the applications that researchers will most probably use.

 

I came across a project of the group of Cohen at UCLA. They have configured a Apple (unix) grid and have proposed a more or less standard setup specially designed for MRI analyses:

 

http://airto.bmap.ucla.edu/mt-static/NICluster/archives/2005/06/welcome.html

 

It is my understanding that one of the members has rewritten the FSL code which allow distributed parallel processing in a Grid. See the benchmarks here:

 

http://airto.bmap.ucla.edu/bmcweb/bmc_bios/MarkCohen/Apple/Benchmarks.htm

 

My question is fairly simple: Are similar steps taken in the Freesurfer community? I have no experience with this app myself, but it is my understanding that Freesurfer consumes a lot of resources.

 

Thank you very much in advance,

 

Andries van der Leij