ASPIRE software

ASPIRE

ASPIRE (A sparse precomputed iterative reconstruction library) is a collection of ANSI C programs for tomographic image reconstruction developed at the University of Michigan by Jeff Fessler and his students.

If you are just beginning to explore iterative image reconstruction, then I recommend you begin with the Matlab image reconstruction toolbox that I have developed, and wait to get ASPIRE when you really need it. If you do not have Matlab (perhaps because it is expensive and annoyingly incompatible between versions) then checkout freemat. Work is underway to make freemat run my tomography toolbox code.

Central components of the ASPIRE code are the regularization methods described in papers by J. A. Fessler and J. W. Stayman about spatial resolution properties of image reconstruction methods. Before using the software, I recommend skimming those papers if you have not seen them already.

Click here to access the software.
There is documentation for ASPIRE in these technical reports for both 2D reconstruction and 3D reconstruction. (This documentation is updated sporadically.) However, you may still find it nontrivial to use due to the plethora of options. You may want to ask me for some example scripts.
Here are publications describing algorithms implemented within this software.
Here are representative images reconstructed with this software.

The ASPIRE compiled executables are available for free access to both academic and industrial users for research purposes. To access the software, you must agree to the terms of the license agreement, which prohibits selling or further distributing the software.

If you are interested, please send me a letter or plain-text email (no attachments, no html) requesting access to the software. I will then email you instructions about how to obtain the programs, and add you to an email list so that you can be informed about upgrades. (I will not distribute your email address to anyone else, and I will only very rarely send you an email about ASPIRE.)

Please include the following information in the email.

The letter must include the following statement: We agree to use the ASPIRE software for non-commercial research purposes only. We will not distribute the software to anyone else, and will take reasonable precautions to prevent unintended copying.
By reasonable precautions, I mean simple things like using not world-readable file permissions, and not installing it in an ftp directory.
The domain name from which you will access the web site. (i.e., .mydepartment.myuniversity.edu)
What type of computer / operating system you plan to use.
I do not support any Microsoft operating systems. There may be a very old Windows version on the server, but I do not plan to update it. If you have no choice but to use Windows, then try the Matlab version instead.

Part of the purpose of these letters is to help in obtaining additional funding for further development. Therefore, it would be nice if your letter would also indicate the following, but this information is not mandatory.

Your planned use of ASPIRE,
What scanner your data will come from.

Address the letters to:
Jeff Fessler
Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
1301 Beal Ave.
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48019-2122

Companies interested in licensing portions of the software for non-research purposes should contact Jeff Fessler at the above address, or The University of Michigan's Technology Transfer Office

For PET reconstruction, the open source STIR package is an alternative to consider.

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