Efficient 3D rendering for Web-based Medical Imaging Software: a proof of concept

摘要

Medical Imaging Software (MIS) found in research and in clinical practice, such as in Picture and Archiving Communication Systems (PACS) and Radiology Information Systems (RIS), has not been able to take full advantage of the Internet as a deployment platform. MIS is usually tightly coupled to algorithms that have substantial hardware and software requirements. Consequently, MIS is deployed on thick clients which usually leads project managers to allocate more resources during the deployment phase of the application than the resources that would be allocated if the application were deployed through a web interface.To minimize the costs associated with this scenario, many software providers use or develop plug-ins to provide the delivery platform (internet browser) with the features to load, interact and analyze medical images. Nevertheless there has not been a successful standard means to achieve this goal so far. This paper presents a study of WebGL as an alternative to plug-in development for efficient rendering of 3D medical models and DICOM images. WebGL is a technology that enables the internet browser to have access to the local graphics hardware in a native fashion. Because it is based in OpenGL, a widely accepted graphic industry standard, WebGL is being implemented in most of the major commercial browsers. After a discussion on the details of the technology, a series of experiments are presented to determine the operational boundaries in which WebGL is adequate for MIS. A comparison with current alternatives is also addressed. Finally conclusions and future work are discussed.