FW Editor: Can you tell us a few things about yourself? What inspired you in developing such a software?
Manabu Inuzuka: As a dermatologist, I take pictures of skin lesions of my patients every day. Keeping clinical photos in an easily searchable and reusable state is a time-consuming task. I had been looking for a tool to store photos in such a way as to support clinical practice efficiently, but in vain. That’s why I wrote tkDerm.

FW Editor: I can assume that developing such a powerful database requires a lot of hard work and sacrifices. Are you happy with the results? Have you ever expected more from tkDerm?
Manabu Inuzuka: When I started to develop tkDerm, my wife complained that I faced my computer for a long time. But now, she admits tkDerm is worth the effort and encourages me to improve it. I am not completely satisfied with the current version of tkDerm. I would like to make tkDerm easier to use and hope more people enjoy it.

FW Editor: While many other similar applications require a license fee, tkDerm is completely free. Why this decision?
Manabu Inuzuka: tkDerm would not have been born without Tcl/Tk or PostgreSQL, both of which are freely available. I greatly appreciate the authors’ generosity to let us use such great tools without charge and it is natural that I released tkDerm as a free software.

FW Editor: How many patient files can be stored in tkDerm? Is there any limit for that?
Manabu Inuzuka: tkDerm does not limit the amount of data it stores. I keep pictures of more than two thousands patients by tkDerm.

FW Editor: tkDerm relates data with photos automatically, based on the time stamps of digital photos. Can you tell us more about this feature
Manabu Inuzuka: When shooting photos, you should enter metadata such as patient’s name, ID, birthday and sex. The time when you entered the metadata is recorded in the database. On the other hand, the time when you shot a photo is recorded in the photo itself as Exif data. tkDerm compares the two types of time stamps and maps metadata to photos automatically.

FW Editor: Thank you for your time and for this interview. We are hoping to hear more from Manabu Inuzuka as soon as possible.
Manabu Inuzuka: A recent news is the release of tkDerm touch, which is a tkDerm-compatible image database application for iPad. It is available free at the App Store.