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Visual DICOM browser

Key Investigators

Davide Punzo (freelancer, DNA-HIVE, France)
Andras Lasso (Queens University, Canada)

Project Description

The visual DICOM browser provides a new user interface for quick viewing and retrieval of patient images stored on remote DICOM servers. The new tool is optimized for clinical workflows where the focus is on all the images of a single patient - as opposed to the existing DICOM browsing experience, which was more suitable for bringing together images from many patients.

Both server and local content are located at the same place and are visualized by thumbnails. All data is retrieved in the background using classic DIMSE networking (most commonly used protocols in hospitals), in multiple concurrently running threads. The currently supported operations are:

Browsing and filtering with thumbnails of content of local DICOM database and multiple remote DICOM servers.
Query/Retrieve data from servers (DIMSE C-FIND, C-GET, C-MOVE SCU). All the operations are done in background and in parallel. Downloaded data is automatically cached in the local DICOM database. A unique feature is the possibility to retrieve images using C-GET protocol (suitable for cases when many Slicer instances are running in docker containers) with a clinical PACS that only supports C-MOVE protocol (most clinical PACS), via a proxy server (such as the free Orthanc).
Import data from local files.
Receive data sent from remote PACS (DIMSE C-STORE SCP).
Send data to remote PACS (DIMSE C-STORE SCU).
Quick browsing of all DICOM metadata and pixel data.
Remove data from local database (not from server).

The widget is currently an experimental feature in Slicer (DICOM module). Current Roadmap is at link.

Over the past year, improvements have been made to the performance and stability of the widget (full references in Background and References). As a result, the widget is now prepared for broader testing and feedback from both users and developers.

Objective

Get feedback from users/developers.
Prioritize the long term ENH based on the community need/interest. For example:
- Add support for DICOMweb
- Add support for DICOM frame set
- redesign the patient selection widget (currently a tab widget)
- …

Approach and Plan

Have a meeting/demo with people interested for colletting feedback.
Prioritize/coordinated any future development based on the feedback.

Progress and Next Steps

Feedback has been collected (generally positive!!!):
- Leonard Nürnberg:
  - Add an option in settings to order series in the study widget by modality.
  - Automatically load the source volume when loading a segmentation.
  - Render SEG DICOM thumbnails (already a known issue, https://github.com/commontk/CTK/issues/1162#Thumbnailsserieswidgets).
  - Improve UI clarity regarding querying PACS servers vs. filtering the local database (e.g., display a dialog explaining the difference when a user opens the visual DICOM browser for the first time).
- Tina Kapur:
  - Add a button to enable full-screen mode in the Visual DICOM browser.
  - Modify Edit → Application Settings → DICOM → Thumbnail Size (small, medium, large) to apply changes without requiring a restart.
  - Address UI performance issues when importing large cohorts (e.g., 490 patients with 3,931 DICOM series).
  - Patient selection UI is not optimal for a number of patient > 50 (already a known issue, https://github.com/commontk/CTK/issues/1162#Filtering)
  - Implement support for ultrasound video visualization in the Visual DICOM browser (already a known issue, see CTK issue #1162 and Slicer Discourse thread).
The 2025 roadmap had been updated, but priorities will be evaluated following an assessment of current funding opportunities.

Illustrations

screenshots:

Visual DICOM Browser	Jobs and Settings

video:

UML Diagram: