Dear [participant],
We are contacting you because [director of lab] suggested that you might be a good candidate for a study we are conducting on 3D image segmentation. The goal of the study is to gain a better understanding of the manual 3D image segmentation process and to characterize the sub-tasks (navigation, shape understanding, contour finding, etc) that go into creating a segmentation. This information will help us, and other interface developers, to create better, more accurate, segmentation tools and paradigms.

What’s involved: We will be visiting your lab on [date] to conduct on-site interviews. We will ask you to do a segmentation of one of your data sets, and to “think aloud” while you do it. We will then follow up with questions about what you were doing and why. We will video tape your monitor and record the conversations (we will make every effort not to video tape you). We expect the interview to take 2-3 hours of your time. [director] has authorized this study to be performed during your normal work hours.

This study will continue over the next three years, in the form of discussions of the study findings, potential new tools, and further on-site interviews using new tools. You may continue to participate as long as you wish, and may drop out at any time.

More information can be found [here], including the IRB protocol and consent process for this study. Feel free to ask any additional questions you might have.

If you are interested in participating, please let us know by responding to this email. Responding to this email is simply an indication of interest and is not a commitment to participate.

Thank you for your time,
Cindy Grimm (PI)
Oregon State University
Cindy.Grimm@oregonstate.edu (541) 737-4914

Ruth West
University of North Texas
Ruth.West@unt.edu

Tao Ju
Washington University in St. Louis
TaoJu@cse.wustl.edu (314) 935-6648

Study title: Developing conceptual models for navigation, marking, and inspection in the context of 3D image segmentation