Open-Source DICOM Viewers and Servers

Are you considering a picture archiving and communication system (aka PACS) but are apprehensive due to the investment required? Just to clarify, PACS is an economical and automated system that makes it easy to store and retrieve images from pretty much anywhere. Thanks to the open source revolution, there are quite a few proven and free options for both PC and Mac that should be seriously considered if you’re looking to roll out a modern solution to image storage. DICOM viewers, free or paid, are useful when dealing with a DICOM-compliant PACS or cloud-PACS system – such as our coming Vetology platform (more on this at a later date). Having a DICOM viewer on your computer will allow you to view images and other data that is stored in a DICOM format.

OsiriX

IMAGE Information Systems stands for intuitive medical images Viewer (e.g. IQ-VIEW, DICOMReader), Free DICOM Tools (e.g. Kpacs), complete PACS (picture archiving and communication system) and best Radiology Display Solutions for medical imaging. K-PACS aims to deliver a DICOM viewer and storage system. Modelled after the previously free E-Film. The Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology distributes their Central Test Node (CTN) software. They also include documentation. SimpleDICOM is a free DICOM client and viewer.

OsiriX is based on the Macintosh platform and has gained traction in the veterinary industry. This past summer I visited two clinics that have successfully rolled out OsiriX on their own with the help of their tech-savvy staff. The first clinic was a small animal hospital that deployed OsiriX on only one machine. The other clinic was an equine hospital whose OsiriX deployment was a bit more advanced, having multiple Macs where images can be viewed and retrieved.

K-PACS is a general viewing application, which comes along with a cool freeware- the DICOM Viewer. The K-PACS provides the user with variety of tools for viewing and manipulating DICOM images, measuring and converting those measurements into several image formats and implementation of many other important DICOM service classes such as store, query, retrieve, send and move.

OsiriX provides both an advanced viewer and a PACS workstation that processes DICOM images from various imaging machines. Some highlights of the OsiriX viewer are that in addition to DICOM, it supports TIFF, JPEG, PDF, AVI, MPEG and Quicktime, as well as 2D, 3D, 4D, and 5D. Recently, OsiriX released iPhone and iPad apps that will allow you to view studies anywhere inside or outside of the hospital … pretty cool!

OsiriX also serves as an open-source PACS Workstation and provides the software for image processing. OsiriX is built on top of the Cocoa framework, which allows you to build plugins to fit your specific needs.

K-PACS

K-PACS is a PC-based offering that also provides a viewer and PACS server. I often will download the K-PACS viewer on the fly to a PC when a case needs to be reviewed immediately. The flexible K-PACS Viewer supports DICOM and JPEG and can export in a variety of ways. The K-PACS Server provides the ability to store images and is easy to install and maintain on a wide range of hardware, including Windows 7 workstations.

Which option might be best for you?

If you’re already a Macintosh clinic or looking for advanced capabilities such as image fusion, CT, MRI, etc, certainly look into OsiriX. If you’re a PC clinic and aren’t looking for more than being able to manipulate and view your images, certainly check out K-PACS.

If you already use these or other solutions, please do drop me a line, as I’d be interested to learn more about your installation.

-Josh Yoo, Head of IT

K-pacs Viewer

About me: I spent my previous life as a techophile working for IBM but have since seen the light and am following in my father’s footsteps to become a veterinarian. Seeing this industry firsthand, I have realized how hard veterinarians work and what little time they have to “explore” webware options that could help streamline their day. That’s where I might be able to offer a hand until I get my DVM.

K Pacs Viewer