Web-based Image Access

Web-based Image Access (WIA) provide methods for image sharing and interactive viewing of imaging studies using RESTful services regardless of the backend image management infrastructure.

Summary

The Web-based Image Access (WIA) Profile provide methods for image sharing and interactive viewing of imaging studies using RESTful services such as WADO-RS and QIDO-RS.

Benefits

• Provides a mechanism to query/retrieve DICOM imaging objects using DICOM RESTful API (QIDO-RS and WADO-RS) with JSON/XML representation of the object header (JSON in PS 3.18 and XML in 3.19) rather than traditional binary format
• Ease the adoption of non-traditional DICOM devices (e.g. mobile devices) to query/retrieve imaging objects from existing image sharing infrastructure (PACS, VNA, etc.)
• Enable interactive viewing for imaging studies on XDS-I
• Ease the access to imaging documents when integrating with ITI MHD
• Easy to work across firewalls using HTTP(S) compared to DICOM
• Easy to support authentication and encryption using HTTPS compared to DICOM without dependent on an existing secure network (VPN between sites)

Use Cases

1. Image Sharing
2. Interactive Viewing of Studies

Key highlights

1. Neutral about backend image sharing infrastructure
   • XDS/ XDS-I
   • DICOM / DICOMweb
2. Integrates with ITI MHD
   • Document Consumer can locate and interact with imaging studies more efficiently using document metadata instead of manifest

Systems Affected

• Imaging Document Consumer (e.g. mobile tablet, medical camera, etc.) that queries or retrieve imaging objects
• Imaging Document Source (e.g. PACS, VNA, proxy) that responses to consumer imaging objects retrieval requests
• Imaging Document Responder (e.g. PACS, VNA, proxy) that responses to consumer imaging objects query requests

Actors & Transactions:

Process Flow:

The following diagrams depict the simple workflows of WIA.

To support interactive viewing, the Imaging Document Consumer can use QIDO-RS to query for additional series or instance level information, or use WADO-RS RetrieveMetadata action to retrieve the full header of a given DICOM object. This enables an advanced image viewer to retrieve detail object information to support efficient interactive viewing of an imaging study.

If the Imaging Document Responder supports the XDS-I Backend Option, then it can acts as a proxy and translate the QIDO-RS query into XDS Registry Stored Query. Note that the Imaging Document Consumer continues to use QIDO-RS here. Therefore the Imaging Document Consumer is agnostic about the image sharing backend infrastructrue.

If the Imaging Document Consumer supports the MHD Integration Option, then in a document sharing infrastructure, when the consumer encounters an imaging document, it can use the accession number of study instance UID returned in the query response to initiate WIA transactions, without require to fetch any manifests. This streamline the access to imaging study documents in the common document sharing infrastructure.

Specification

Profile Status: Final Text

Documents:

• IHE Radiology Technical Framework

Underlying Standards:

• DICOM PS3.18 QIDO-RS
• DICOM PS3.18 WADO-RS

See Also

IHE Webinar

Video 1: [1]

Video 2: [2]

View slides: [3]

Consumer Information

Implementer Information

Reference Articles

This page is based on the Profile Overview Template