BRAID: The Brain-Image Database Project:
Database Development

The BRAID project is developing database technology for the manipulation and analysis of 3-dimensional brain images derived from MRI, PET, CT, etc. BRAID is based on the Illustra server, an object-relational or SQL 3 DBMS, which allows a standard relational DBMS to be augmented with application-specific datatypes and operators. The BRAID project is adding operations and datatypes to support querying, manipulation and analysis of 3D medical images, including:
Image Datatypes
BRAID supports a family of 3D image datatypes, each having an abstract type and an implementation type. Abstract types include boolean (for regions of interest), integer, float, vector (for representing morphological changes), tensor (for representing derivatives and standard deviations of vector images) and color. Implementation types at present include line-segment format and voxel array.

Image Operators
BRAID supports addition of images, multiplication (which is interpreted as intersection for boolean images), coercion of an image's abstract or implementation type to another value, and determination of volumes of regions of interest.
Statistical Operators
A chi-squared test has been added to SQL as an aggregate operator on pairs of boolean values.

Web Interface
A general-purpose Web gateway allows the results of queries that return computed images to be displayed.


We're porting the database to PostgreSQL, and open-source ORDBMS, to foster interoperability and sharing of software; during this port, the web interface to BRAID will not be available.