1. A system for assembling an application for processing image or image-derived data, comprising: a base operator configured to interface with one or more derivative operator classes, each operator class including an operator object for executing a processing function on the image or image-derived data; and a base multiport node class configured to provide a multiport node for each operator object, the multiport nodes instantiating a pluggable operator for connecting the multiport nodes together at runtime according to user-defined parameters, and wherein the connection of multiport nodes implements the processing functions of the operator objects to execute the application.