Distributed computing platform for PET and SPECT simulations with GATE

GEANT4 application for tomographic emission (GATE) is a toolkit for the simulation of full-fledged PET and SPECT systems. It allows the user to model realistic nuclear medicine experiments with an easy to use, yet powerful, scripting language. This paper describes a platform independent distributed computing approach for running GATE experiments on a cluster of computers in order to reduce the overall computing time by automatically generating fully resolved, non-parameterized macros accompanied with an on the fly generated cluster submit file. It was shown that GATE simulations with low data output rates such as low sensitivity SPECT simulations with voxelized phantoms scale very well and that an optimum can be derived for simulations that generate high data output rates, such as non-voxelized, high sensitivity small animal PET experiments