About PLanUNC

PLanUNC (PLUNC) is a portable, adaptable, and extensible set of software tools for radiotherapy treatment planning (RTP) that has been under active development in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of North Carolina (UNC) for approximately 20 years. In 1992, development work branched into separate paths at UNC (PLanUNC) and Sherouse Systems, Inc. (GRATIS^TM). The current UNC tools encompass the full range of RTP functions including image importing and processing, virtual simulation, dose calculation, plan evaluation, and planning for intensity modulated radiotherapy. PLanUNC source code and related software are licensed without fee to qualified facilities to support research involving new methods for planning and delivering radiation therapy, and to support RTP training for dosimetrists, physicists, radiation therapists, and radiation oncology residents. Research milestones of the development and application of PLanUNC can be found here.

Source Code

PlanUNC source code is written in a modular fashion using a combination of C and C++. The code has been compiled on versions of Linux, UNIX, Microsoft Windows, and Apple Macintosh OS. The user interface is based on a freely available, cross-platform widget library called FLTK. PlanUNC has a flexible multithreaded environment that can make use of multiple processors within a single computer as well as distributed processing for dose computation across multiple computers. Programmer documentation has been developed to assist researchers in modifying and extending PLanUNC source code.

Purpose of This Website

UNC and other research and education facilities have found PLanUNC to be a valuable resource. However, the lack of complete documentation and other resources for user support has limited PLanUNC from fulfilling its true potential. The National Center for Research Resources and the National Cancer Institute have joined together to fund development of resources needed to better support users, including this website, under NIH grant RO1 RR 01861501. Current resources include a user guide, programmer documentation, and demo and source code versions of PLanUNC. Annual user workshops are planned to begin during Spring 2006. Future software resources will include, for example, interfaces to tools in the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK) (www.itk.org), and interfaces to tools developed by the UNC Medical Image Display and Analysis Group (MIDAG) (midag.cs.unc.edu).

Licensing PLanUNC

Institutions, departments, and other facilities engaged in research and education involving radiation therapy can apply to obtain a license to use PLanUNC source code. Individuals who choose to register may obtain a copy of the user guide and a compiled demo version that runs under Windows.

Licenses for use of PLanUNC are available without cost and can be acquired by sending a written request on your institution's official letterhead and by including a signed copy of the PLanUNC license form, which can be downloaded using the link below. Please indicate your intended use for PLanUNC as part of your license request. License requests should be sent to:

PLanUNC License Request
c/o Edward Chaney
Department of Radiation Oncology
Campus Box 7512
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7512

Click here to download the license agreement.

Other Available Software

In addition to the main PLanUNC software, the following packages are now available:

1. PluncSnap: A version of PLanUNC equipped with open source segmentation package ITK-SNAP.
2. Monte Carlo Interface: A set of programs making PLanUNC treatment pland compatible with Monte Carlo dose calculation software