OPTARI: An open-source software framework for clinical translation of optoacoustic imaging
Abstract
Combined optoacoustic (OptA) and ultrasound imaging is a promising modality across a wide range of pathologies. Its use in clinical research, however, is limited by a lack of analysis software accessible to users without programming expertise. Existing tools are either script-based engineering frameworks or proprietary vendor applications. We present OPTARI, an open-source graphical software application to facilitate large-scale clinical optoacoustic-ultrasound (OPUS) studies. OPTARI builds on the napari image viewer and the PATATO toolkit for OptA data processing. It supports native vendor and open HDF5 data formats, aligns with the IPASC standard, and is distributed as a standalone executable. Features include region-of-interest annotation, reconstruction, chromophore unmixing, deep-learning-based tissue segmentation, and temporal and spectral analysis modules. OPTARI offers a combination of features for clinical study analysis that none of the compared tools provide. The automated tissue segmentation produced results comparable to expert labeling for muscle tissue, and batch processing reduced analysis time from minutes to under one second per scan. The tool is used in ongoing clinical OPUS studies. OPTARI connects engineering frameworks with medical research and provides an open-source basis for reproducible and standardized analysis in clinical OptA imaging studies.
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BibTeX
@misc{schillinger2026optari,
title = {{OPTARI: An open-source software framework for clinical translation of optoacoustic imaging}},
author = {Moritz Schillinger and Maximilian Bader and Adrian Buehler and Felix Wachter and Ferdinand Knieling and Vasilis Ntziachristos and Katharina Breininger},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.32468},
eprint = {2610.32468},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.32468},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - OPTARI: An open-source software framework for clinical translation of optoacoustic imaging
AU - Moritz Schillinger
AU - Maximilian Bader
AU - Adrian Buehler
AU - Felix Wachter
AU - Ferdinand Knieling
AU - Vasilis Ntziachristos
AU - Katharina Breininger
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/23
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.32468
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.32468
AB - Combined optoacoustic (OptA) and ultrasound imaging is a promising modality across a wide range of pathologies. Its use in clinical research, however, is limited by a lack of analysis software accessible to users without programming expertise. Existing tools are either script-based engineering frameworks or proprietary vendor applications. We present OPTARI, an open-source graphical software application to facilitate large-scale clinical optoacoustic-ultrasound (OPUS) studies. OPTARI builds on the napari image viewer and the PATATO toolkit for OptA data processing. It supports native vendor and open HDF5 data formats, aligns with the IPASC standard, and is distributed as a standalone executable. Features include region-of-interest annotation, reconstruction, chromophore unmixing, deep-learning-based tissue segmentation, and temporal and spectral analysis modules. OPTARI offers a combination of features for clinical study analysis that none of the compared tools provide. The automated tissue segmentation produced results comparable to expert labeling for muscle tissue, and batch processing reduced analysis time from minutes to under one second per scan. The tool is used in ongoing clinical OPUS studies. OPTARI connects engineering frameworks with medical research and provides an open-source basis for reproducible and standardized analysis in clinical OptA imaging studies.
ER -