Planning Steps
The personalized TI plans allow the use of magnetic resonance (MR) and/or diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data to obtain results tailored to an individual. Note that the precomputed flavors are also supported — users on a precomputed path can start directly from the TI Analysis workflow step.
The planning process is described below for both approaches. See Workflows for a full overview of all available plan types.
Personalized Workflow Steps:
- Offline Personalization (optional): For privacy-sensitive workflows, users can run the full personalization pipeline locally using
run_personalizer.bat(requires Sim4Life 9.4+). Raw MRI is anonymized on-device and only the segmented head model is uploaded to TIP. - File Picker: Upload a T1-weighted MR image for isotropic simulations, a zipped T1+DTI package for anisotropic simulations, or the anonymized zip archive from the Offline Personalization step.
- Personalizer: An AI model generates a tissue model from the uploaded data and extracts anisotropic conductivity if DTI was provided. The neural network also automatically identifies and places anatomical landmarks for the EEG 10-10 system, eliminating the need for manual fiducial placement.
- Model Inspector: Users can inspect the generated head model and, if needed, manually place or correct fiducial points. If manual fiducial placement is required, the Personalizer must be re-run afterward to position the electrodes on the 10-10 system (see the fallback section in Personalizer).
- Simulator: Isotropic or anisotropic EM simulations are automatically generated and solved on AWS. Once results are available, all necessary files for optimization are exported.
All Plan Types:
- TI Analysis: Users select the species, parameters for the quantities of interest, and target tissue, then run the surrogate-modeling-based (SuMo) optimizer. A diverse set of Pareto-optimal solutions is provided; users can interactively explore trade-offs like selectivity versus intensity. As of TIP V5.0, optimization completes in 5–10 minutes. Identified configurations can be documented and added to a report.
- Exposure Analysis: Optionally, users can freely visualize and analyze exposure conditions using the full Sim4Life workbench (Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis sections), with ready-to-use template projects available for all precomputed models (TIP V5.0+).
Please refer to Quick Start Guide section for more details.
The principal computational steps are:
- Electromagnetic modeling
- Exploration of the exposure condition space
Additional background on these steps is provided in the following sections.