Analyze is the product of more than 25 years of research, design and development at Mayo Clinic's Biomedical Imaging Resource (BIR). Since the early 1970's the BIR has been a world leader in the cutting edge design and implementation of computer-based techniques for the display and analysis of multidimensional biomedical images.

Strongly influenced by input from collaborative research projects with biomedical imaging centers of excellence worldwide, Analyze is a continually evolving software system. Today Analyze has matured into the most comprehensive, robust and productive software package available for 3D biomedical image visualization and analysis. Its widespread use and impact on a multiplicity of applications have served to validate the 'toolbox' approach to biomedical imaging software integration, an architecture which provides an effective shell for rapid prototyping of customized imaging applications. The synergistic integration of comprehensive and generic tools for visualization, processing, and quantitative analysis of biomedical images in a highly operator-interactive, intuitive interface has allowed surgeons, physicians, and basic scientists to explore large multidimensional biomedical image volumes efficiently and productively.

Originally developed for Unix workstations only, Analyze was completely redesigned in 1996 to include support for Microsoft Windows. This was in large part due to the demands of our customer base, who were able to purchase low cost but increasingly powerful PC workstations. Analyze is now offered on 4 UNIX platforms, 4 Windows platforms, 3 Linux platforms, and 2 Mac platforms. Considerable increases in hardware specifications, combined with constant improvements in our software development capabilities, has led to remarkably enhanced performance of Analyze. Functions that used to take several hours to perform, such as volume rendering, segmentation or surface generation, now take a matter of seconds. This increase in overall performance combined with overall price reductions in high-end hardware, has led to a dramatic increase in global Analyze usage over the past few years.

Today, the Analyze software system is entirely built upon a toolkit of optimized functions that are organized into a software development library called AVW. The AVW imaging library is a collection of over 600 functions that are accessible to software developers to build advanced image-based application solutions. Analyze is an integration of the full functionality represented in the AVW toolkit with an intuitive windows-based interface which makes it easy to learn and to use. The most important feature of Analyze is the paradigm in which it operates - a powerful software architecture that allows multiple volume images to be simultaneously accessed and processed by multiple programs in a multi-window interface. The user interface for Analyze is based on Tcl/Tk, which offers full compliance with interface standards across multivendor workstations and PCs.

Used by thousands of imaging researchers worldwide, Analyze represents a mature, feature-rich, tested and proven product with a long history and internationally recognized tradition of continuous innovative development and reliable support.

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