Essential viewing

, a medical imaging company headquartered in Belgium, has received a £1m grant from

to help develop a new visualisation product at its Edinburgh R&D site.

As part of the company's work on the analysis of heart disease and cancer, Barco has developed software called Advanced Visualisation Thin (AVT). This uses medical images obtained from CT, MRI and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanners to produce 3D images that radiologists can read from any laptop or desktop computer with a standard network connection or two to four Mbps broadband service.

'The software allows radiologists, cardiologists or oncologists to view these images in 3D as they come off the scanner, take measurements and, importantly, generate reports for referring physicians or within their own community,' said Paul Kinch, original equipment manufacturer OEM (original equipment manufacturer) channel product manager for Barco's advanced visualisation products.

'The key thing about the software is that it does not reside on the scanners; it is integrated with the picture archiving and communications systems (PACS). Deployed in many hospitals worldwide, these are widely used by doctors to store, recall and visualise medical images.'