# Engineering Roadmap

## Now (v0.1–v0.3) — foundation ✓
- NIfTI/DICOM IO → `Volume` with correct mm affine
- Tested geometry/planning core (world↔voxel, MPR, length/angle, clearance)
- VTK+Qt desktop GUI: 3 MPR views + 3D, click-to-plan, metrics panel
- Structure-aware risk via the real Harvard-Oxford atlas (v0.2)
- Real-time probe-induced deformation field, first-order cavity-expansion (v0.3)
- Reproducible proof figures on real MNI152 MRI

## Next — clinical realism
1. **Automated segmentation** — patient-specific labelling of eloquent cortex,
   ventricles, and deep structures from the T1 via a pretrained model
   (TotalSegmentator / SynthSeg) is in as the optional `seg` extra
   (`sulcora.segmentation`); **vessel segmentation + clearance-to-vessel** is in
   via a multiscale Frangi vesselness filter (`sulcora.vessels`), the dominant
   SEEG/biopsy safety metric. Next: a learned vessel-segmentation backend and
   patient DTI tractography (TractSeg) to replace atlas tracts.
2. **Patient-specific registration** (deformable) so the atlas/risk works on any
   patient scan, not only atlas-space images. (Segmentation above already covers
   the structures a pretrained model labels; registration remains for
   atlas-only labels such as the Juelich tracts.)
3. **Oblique / arbitrary-plane MPR** and probe's-eye view. *In:* `sulcora.reslice`
   provides in-line and probe's-eye reformats; next is wiring them into the GUI.
   *(Automatic multi-structure trajectory optimization is in — `sulcora.optimizer`
   ranks entry corridors by clearance to vessels + eloquent + deep + tracts,
   optionally deformation-aware. Next: GUI integration and sulcal-entry avoidance.)*
4. **Plan persistence** — save/load plans (JSON, `sulcora.plan.save_plan`/`load_plan`)
   and export the rich report PDF are in, wired into the GUI. Next: multi-plan
   management and DICOM-RT / structured-report export for the OR.

## Then — the validated differentiator (ARPA-H Phase I/II)
5. **Validated deformation model** — replace the first-order analytical field
   with an FEM-trained AI surrogate, verified against measured tissue
   displacement (phantom/cadaveric). *In progress:* a real linear-elasticity
   finite-element solver (`sulcora.fem`, 8-node hexahedral elements solving the
   Navier-Cauchy equations with a displacement-driven cavity and fixed far
   field) now replaces the v0.3 closed-form heuristic as the physics core. Next:
   patient-specific material maps, large-deformation/hyperelastic constitutive
   law, and the AI surrogate trained on FEM + measured displacement.
6. **Validation harness** wired to the metrics in `VALIDATION_PLAN.md`
   (phantom → cadaveric → retrospective).
7. **Robotics interface** (ROS/sim) exposing the virtual brain as a test
   environment for neurosurgical robots.

## Productisation
8. QMS / IEC 62304 / ISO 14971 process, design history file.
9. Regulatory pre-submission; first commercial wedge (training/rehearsal or
   research-V&V licence) ahead of the cleared clinical planning product.
