The matRad GUI

The GUI is used for the treatment plan visualization and the adjustment of the plan and optimization parameters. It is possible to execute the matRad script using only the GUI (see matRad-GUI guide).

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Overview of the GUI

The matRad GUI consist of 6 main sections:

Section	Content
Workflow	These are the main steps that need to be executed for treatment planning.
Plan Parameters	Here the plan parameters like beam direction and radiation mode can be selected.
Command Window	Here the output of the Command Window is displayed inside the GUI.
Optimization Parameters	Using the optimization parameters the constraints of the VOIs can be adjusted.
Visualization Parameter	Here the visualization can be adjusted to show different planes/slices of plot types.
Visualization	The information specified in the Visualization Parameters is displayed in this section.

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Workflow

The Workflow is initially used to load the patient data. You can also start the dicom import from here. After the adjustment of all parameters the dose calculation and the fluence optimization can be started from here:

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Adjustment of the plan parameters

In this section the plan parameters are adjusted before calculating the dose-influence-matrix.

Parameter	Description
SAD	Source-axis distance (SAD), default value: 1000 mm
bixel width	Photons: width of a photon bixel. Particles: lateral spot distance. Default value: 5 mm
Gantry angle	Here the set of desired gantry angles (in degree) can be specified. For the seperation of the values you can either use ',' or a space ' '.
Couch angle	Here the set of desired couch angles (in degree) can be specified. For the seperation of the values you can either use ',' or a space ' '. Make sure that you always have the same amount of couch and gantry angles.
Radiation mode	You can choose between photons, protons and carbon ions.
IsoCenter	Use this to set the iso center (in mm).
# Fractions	Here the desired number of fractions can be specified.
Biological optimization	For carbon ions you can apply a biological optimization. You can choose between an optimization of the biological effect ('effect') or the RBE-weighted dose ('RBExD').
Run Sequencing	Check this if you want to run a MLC sequencing. The number of stratification levels can be adjusted.
Run Direct Aperture Optimization	Check this if you want to run an additional direct aperture optimization.

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Adjustment of the optimization parameters

The optimization parameters regarding the volumes of interest (VOIs) are stored in the variable cst. For more detailed information about the parameters stored in the cell please hava a look at the documentation of the cst-cell array. Using the GUI you can adjust the settings and save them into cst by clicking the save-button. To add or delete volumes you can use the '+' and '-' buttons.

Field	Description
VOI	Via a drop-down menu you can select a VOI by clicking it's name.
VOI Type	You can specify whether the VOI is an organ at risk (OAR) or a target volume
Overlap	This value defines how overlapping structures are handled. The value 1 corresponds to the highest priority. If structures with the same priority overlap the overlapping voxels will be considered twice during the optimization.
Objective Function	This field allows you to specify how the VOI will be considerd during the optimization. You can choose between square underdosing, square overdosing, square deviation, mean or EUD. You can find more detailed information about this in the section 'Dose objectives' of the page: The cst cell
Penalty	For the objective function value a weighted sum is calculated. The penalty value corresponds to the weighting factor for this VOI with respect to the defined constraint (e.g. overdosing). By adjusting this value you can stress the importance of these constraints with respect to each other.
Parameters	For square underdosing, square overdosing and square deviation this value corresponds to the threshold dose above/below which the penalty will apply. For the mean-option this value is not needed, as the mean dose within this VOI will be minimized. For the EUD method the parameter corresponds to the exponent.

To adjust the convergence criteria you can specify the maximum number of iterations and the convergence precision in the Optimization Parameter section. Default values are: 1000 iterations and a precision of 10^-3:
(Precision ≡ |(FuncValue_old−FuncValue_new) / FuncValue_old|)

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Visualizing treatment plans

After the optimization the treatment plan can be visualized within the GUI. Using the visualization parameters you can change the view. The radio buttons can be used to turn off/on the plotting of contours, dose (isolines) and isoline labels.

Display options

Type of plot	Display option	Plane	Resulting image
intensity	Dose	axial	[[/images/doseVisAxialIntensity.png
		sagital	[[/images/doseVisSagitalIntensity.png
		coronal	[[/images/doseVisCoronalIntensity.png
	effect	axial	[[/images/doseVisAxialEffect.png
	RBEWeightedDose	axial	[[/images/doseVisAxialRBExD.png
	RBE	axial	[[/images/doseVisAxialRBE.png
	alpha	axial	[[/images/doseVisAxialAlpha.png
	beta	axial	[[/images/doseVisAxialBeta.png
	RBETruncated10Perc	axial	[[/images/doseVisAxialRBEtruncated.png
profile		lateral	[[/images/doseVisLateralProfile.png
		longitudinal	[[/images/doseVisLongitudinalProfile.png

Sequencing

To visualize the sequencing process you can click the 'Show Sequencing' button. The number of stratification levels can be defined in the field below. After the sequencing you can visualize the "sequencing dose" using the Display options.

DVH

To draw a DVH of the current treatment plan you can click the 'Show DVH' button: