Medical pedigrees with TeX and PSTricks: New advances and challenges

Boris Veytsman*, Leila Akhmadeeva**
* George Mason University, Fairfax, ** Russia
Play (42min) Download: M4V | MP3

A medical pedigree is an important tool for researchers, clinicians, students and patients. It helps to diagnose many hereditary diseases, estimate risks for family members, etc (Bennett, Steinhaus, Uhrich, O’Sullivan, Resta, Lochner–Doyle, Markei, Vincent, and Hamanishi, 1995). Recently we reported a comprehensive package for automatic pedigree drawing (Veytsman and Akhmadeeva, 2006; Veytsman and Akhmadeeva, 2007). Since then we extended the algorithm for a number of complex cases, including correct drawing of consanguinic relationships, twins and many others.

In this talk we review the facilities of the current version of the program and the new challenges in computer–aided drawing of medical pedigrees.

We try to make the talk interesting to TeXnicians and TeXperts by discussing the experience of design a TeX–based application working in a “real world”.