What is XTK®?

XTK® is developed by Sandia National Laboratories for the United States Government under funding from NNSA. XTK® is a radiograph acquisition and processing program designed specifically for Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technicians.

XTK® supports image acquisition from a variety of commercial scanners and provides image enhancement, measurement, and markup tools through a modern, touch-friendly and user-friendly interface.

XTK® is free to all US government entities and provides a common tool that can be used by all branches of the EOD community.

XTK® is available to foreign EOD users for a small per user fee.

Scanner Integration

Three levels of integration are available for commercial x-ray imaging systems:


Compatible
The imaging system can produce x-ray images in standard formats (TIF or JPG) that can be opened with XTK.
Optionally the user can send images directly from the vendor software to XTK with a shared folder or a button.


Integrated
The imaging system can be selected in XTK, a scan can be initiated and the image returned back to the operator.
In some cases control will switch to the vendor software when operating the equipment.


Unified
The imaging system supports the XTK Unified Scan Control, and can be operated from the user interface within XTK.

DR Systems
Manufacturer Model(s) Compatible Integrated Unified Notes
3DX-RAY ThreatScan ✓ ✓ ✓
Carestream HPX ✓ ✓ ✓ In Development
Cuattro ✓ ✓ Requires Cuattro Security Software
Kodex Merlin ✓ Full Integration Coming Soon
Leidos XPose XP ✓ ✓
Logos SOSTÓS, XIRÓS, STENÓS ✓ ✓
Micro-X In Development, Backscatter Capabilities
Scanna ScanSilc EOD ✓ ✓ ✓
SmartRayVision SRV 2X,3X ✓ Full Integration Coming Soon
NOVO-DR Rover, Shadow ✓ ✓ Requires NOVO-TOUCH Software & License
Pacific NDT EzCR, EzDR, PiX Series ✓ In Development
Teledyne ICM Flatscan Series, TactX Series ✓ Requires SHERLOCK Security Software
Vidisco FlashX, Alpha, Guardian ✓ ✓ ✓ Requires Xbit Software & License

CR (film) Systems
Manufacturer Model(s) Compatible Integrated Unified Notes
Leidos RTR-5 ✓ ✓ ✓
Logos T-Series "Breadmaker" ✓ ✓ ✓
Scanna CR35 ✓ ✓ ✓
ScanX 12, 14, Scout ✓ ✓ ✓
NexRay MMX/FPX, Mini, Nano, Max ✓ ✓ ✓
VMI ✓ ✓ Requires iScan Software
Any TWAIN Interface i.e. Logos DCR810 ✓ ✓ ✓

Features

XTK® is built on an industry leading fully-featured image processing engine to provide the EOD community with the most desired and useful functions.

  • Standardized, optimized scanner-independent workflows help reduce complexity and training burden for radiography operations.
  • Support for a variety of image types, including TIFF, JPEG, JPEG2000, PNG, and BMP.
  • Support for 16bit grayscale images.
Image Processing
Measuring
Mosaics
Aiming
Pulse Calculation
Incident Manager
3D Visualizer

Image Processing

  • Auto Enhance
  • Manual Histogram Manipulation
  • Adaptive Histogram Equalization
  • Global Histogram Equalize
  • Color Processing and Black Body
  • Emboss
  • Sharpen
  • Edge Detection
  • Region of Interest Processing

Measuring

XTK® allows you to compute the magnification factor in several ways:
  • From 'Source to Imager' and 'Target to Imager' distances
  • From a standard fiducial (such as the tungsten ball)
  • From an object of known length

Mosaics

  • Set the mosaic spacing
  • Adjust offset and rotation of each panel
  • Stitch the panels together into a single image
  • Un-stitch a mosaic (if you have the original panel images)

Aiming

XTK® includes Grid-Aim.
  • Aim a disruptor at an identified target
  • Uses a special Grid-Board and Source/Disruptor co-location hardware

Pulse Calculation

XTK® includes a pulse calcuation tool, called Dose Calculator.

  • Select your scanner and source type
  • Enter setup distances and intermediate materials
  • Dose Calculator computes the number of X-Ray pulses required to get a good image
  • Estimate equivalent thicknesses of various shielding materials

Incident Manager

XTK® includes Incident Manager to help you stay organized.

  • Organize your images and other files
  • Drag & drop with Windows or email programs
  • Import and export entire folders at once with optional file compression

3D Visualizer

XTK® includes a 3D Visualizer to help improve situational awareness and planning.

  • Requires two orthogonal views of the same object
  • Select the container and objects of interest in each view
  • View the approximate 3D location and size

Minimum System Requirements

  • Windows 7, 8/8.1, 10 (version 1607 or later), 11
  • 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
  • 4GB RAM (16GB for large mosaics)
  • 5000MB of hard drive space
Note that these are minimum requirements, if you are doing any kind of large or multiple image processing (i.e. mosaics) you will need more RAM to avoid system instability.