SOLICITATION NOTICE
D -- Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK) Development and Maintenance Support Services
- Notice Date
- 9/21/2009
- Notice Type
- Combined Synopsis/Solicitation
- NAICS
- 511210
— Software Publishers
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine, 6707 Democracy Blvd., Suite 105, Bethesda, Maryland, 20894, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20894
- Solicitation Number
- 09-219
- Archive Date
- 10/13/2009
- Point of Contact
- Cara Y Calimano, Phone: 301 496-6127
- E-Mail Address
-
CalimaC@mail.nlm.nih.gov
(CalimaC@mail.nlm.nih.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- This is a combined synopsis/solicitation being conducted under Simplified Acquisition Procedures in accordance with FAR Part 12. This solicitation document incorporates provisions and clauses that are in effect through the June 2008 Federal Acquisition Regulation revision, which includes the consolidation of all Federal Acquisition Circulars through 2005-26. This acquisition is NOT a small business set-aside and the NAICS code is 511210. This announcement constitutes the formal Request for Quotation (RFQ) and NO additional written solicitation will be issued. It is the intent of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to procure professional services from Kitware on a sole source basis. Background: The Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK) is an open source software system for performing segmentation, registration and analysis of medical images. It has become the de facto standard in research labs at universities, small businesses, and the top commercial medical device manufacturing companies. There are reports that ITK is being used in multiple clinical products including surgical planning and surgical guidance systems. The NLM, along with other partnering NIH institutes, funded the creation of ITK starting in 1999 at a total investment of $13M over the initial five years of its development. Six principal sites were chosen to develop ITK: Kitware Inc., GE Global Research, Insightful Inc., the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Utah, with subcontracts to Harvard Brigham and Women's Hospital, University of Pittsburgh, and Columbia University. Approximately fifty developers located at these sites contributed code and documentation to the toolkit. ITK has an active community of developers and users. The ITK is supported on over 42 different programming environments spanning multiple versions of Microsoft Windows, MacOS, Linux, SunOS, and others. It consists of over 1,600 C++ classes that are also accessible from Java, TK/TCL, and Python. Over the past ten years, algorithms have been contributed to ITK by over 30 groups located around the world. Its users' email list averages over 450 postings per month. The ITK software guide, which consists of hundreds of examples that teach programmers how to use ITK, has over 830 pages. That software guide has been downloaded over 34,000 times in the past five years, and it is viewed online over 3,000 times per month. ITK is typically downloaded over 11,000 times every three months. It has been estimated that over 80% of the papers presented at the 2008 Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI) conference used ITK. The Insight Journal, an Open Access journal that hosts community contributions to the Insight Toolkit, has over 1,250 subscribers, 350 publications and 750 reviews. The most downloaded papers from the Journal have been downloaded over 2,000 times. These papers provide contributions of new classes and algorithms to ITK. Kitware has received funding for the past five years to provide maintenance and support for ITK and its community. Our efforts include the following: 1. ITK Community Support • Provide servers that host ITK code, wiki pages, web pages, email lists, dashboards, and other web-based community tools. • Monitor and answer the majority of questions posted on the ITK users' and developers' email lists. • Provide slides to presenters and make presentations ourselves on the use and benefits of ITK. Recent presentations include a technology course at RSNA 2008 and open-source workshops in three different countries as well as the US. 2. ITK Code Support • Provide and maintain over fifteen computer systems that test ITK every night. These systems monitor the operation of ITK for a multitude of programming environments. • Track the resolution of and often provide the actual solutions for errors in ITK that are reported by users. • Generate stable releases of ITK at regular intervals to ease its adoption by new users. 3. ITK Development Support • Host weekly developers' conference calls to discuss the needs, shortcomings, and future directions of the toolkit. • Operate and serve as editors and associate editors for the Insight Journal - the open-access journal that is companion to ITK and the conduit by which new methods for ITK are proposed. • Organize and, in many cases, conduct the movement of popular methods from the Insight Journal into ITK and its companion Insight Applications repository. Specifications: The services to be performed during the next year build upon the successful strategy we have been following. The services to be performed include the following: 1. ITK Community Support • Provide the servers that host ITK's web-based community tools. • Monitor and answer questions posted on the ITK users' and developers' email lists. • Help organize, advertise, and present at a 3-day course at the NLM that will provide programmers with the background materials and methods needed to continue the design, development, and support of ITK. 2. ITK Code Support • Provide and maintain computer systems that test ITK every night for a multitude of programming environments. • Track the resolution of and often provide the actual solutions for errors in ITK that are reported by users. • Generate a stable release of ITK with an emphasis on ensuring the longevity of that release. 3. ITK Development Support • Host weekly developers' conference calls to discuss the needs, shortcomings, and future directions of the toolkit. • Operate and serve as editors and associate editors for the Insight Journal. • Organize and, in many cases, conduct the movement of popular methods from the Insight Journal into ITK and its companion InsightApplications repository. Period of Performance: The period of performance will be for one year from the date of award. Justification: The Insight Toolkit has succeeded because an active community has formed around it. New users are engaged in presentations and on the email lists. Questions are rapidly answered on users' and developers' lists to reduce the learning curve. A massive collection of web-based resources are available to learn about the toolkit and support its distributed development and testing. All of the above are being led by Kitware who is unique in having 10 years of experience with designing, developing, and maintaining ITK and is thereby well known, respected, and trusted by the community of developers. Sole Source Justification: As mentioned above, the computer systems, servers, expertise, and reputation held by Kitware for the support and development of the ITK community is unmatched in the industry. Without argument, no other single group can provide the depth and breadth of expertise and historical knowledge that is essential to serving the ITK community. Kitware is also prized for its reputation in supporting open-source software, and the value of that reputation in regards to convincing users and developers of the continued stability and openness of ITK cannot be over stated. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive quotations however, all responses received, within 7days from the date of publication of this synopsis will be considered by NLM. Information received in a timely manner will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. A determination by the Government to conduct a competition for this proposed acquisition based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. The quoter shall include all information which documents and/or supports the qualification criteria in one clearly marked section of its quotation. Offeror must complete required registration in the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) database. The contractor shall comply with all applicable Federal, State, and local laws, executive orders, rules and regulations applicable to its performance under this order. Full text of clauses and provisions are available at Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR): http://www.arnet.gov/far/index.html. The following clauses and provisions apply to this acquisition and may be obtained from the web site: FAR 52.212-4, Terms and Conditions- (Commercial Items) (March 2009); FAR 52.204-6, Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) Number (October 2003); FAR 52.204-7, Central Contractor Registration (July 2006). Upon request, the Government will make their full text available. NLM Synopsis No. 09-211-CYC shall be noted on all correspondence to this announcement. RESPONSES SHALL BE SENT VIA EMAIL TO: Cara Calimano at cc436e@nih.gov no later than 12pm noon EST. FAXED OR MAILED RESPONSES WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. Inquiries regarding this notice may be made to Cara Calimano, Contract Specialist via email.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/HHS/NIH/OAM/09-219/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: 6707 Democracy Blvd., Suite 105, Bethesda, Maryland, 20894, United States
- Zip Code: 20894
- Zip Code: 20894
- Record
- SN01963932-W 20090923/090922000609-02828e18d550357bb276ec494a4a7ebe (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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