Directory Storage

Hi all,

First, thanks for creating such a really cool piece of software. Been in the biz for about 10 years now and am fascinated with it.

I have read up on the storage conversation and how there is only one location. I am actually good with that, however, is there a way to configure the system to have Orthanc organize the folder within that destination?

Example: I have 3 clinics that I am storing images for. They all come in as expected but when I look at the storage directory, all the files are stored in 2 alpha numeric fashion. Is there a way to prefix the folder with the institution name so it looks like so -

C:\STORAGE\Clinic Name 1\rest of folders
C:\STORAGE\Clinic Name 2\Rest of folders
C:\STORAGE\Clinic Name 3\Rest of folders

So a Pseudo Code line (in my vision) would look something like this:

storage location = ["C:\STORAGE'(InstitutionName)'"]

Which somehow could produce the above lines in the example. Any links, advice or points in the right direction are always welcome and appreciated.

Thank you.

Craig Rollison.

EDIT: I said, “all the files are stored . . .” it should say, “all the folders are stored”. Sorry for the slip.

Hi Craig,

Orthanc can’t do that out of the box. This page explains more about how files are stored. https://book.orthanc-server.com/faq/orthanc-storage.html?highlight=storage#direct-access

You could create a python/c++ plugin https://book.orthanc-server.com/plugins/python.html?highlight=plugins#implementing-a-custom-storage-area-new-in-3-3 to do this.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

James

James,

Yes this does help. At the very least, I now am not wasting time to find out how to do something it can’t do without a mod/plugin. That gets me one step closer to my goal. I have not read the links yet at the time of this post, but will come back to add to it after I have read them for more updates and appreciation comments.

Thank you very much.

Respectfully,

Craig.

James,

Forgot to ask, do you know of any plugin pages for Orthanc? I have done some searches, but they all lead me to relatively the same plugins. It is very possible that someone else has already thought of this and am happy to search for it and test it out.

Thank you.

Craig.

Hi Craig,

I don’t remember any such plugins.

You could get inspiration from this one: https://github.com/jodogne/OrthancContributed/tree/master/Plugins/orthancVPIRevealPlugin but I think that it makes a COPY of the file in a more user-friendly hierarchy.

HTH

Alain

I’m just a Veterinarian, but since whatever reader/viewer you might use can usually be configured to query multiple pac’s at the same time… Might the path of least pain be to have each of the sources store to it’s own instance of orthanc?
Then from your reader, you can still query all 3 sources at once if you wanted to. Seems like the cleaner easier way to do it. Your mileage may vary. Or to store in 3 instances of orthanc and auto forward to the one big master… and query it as the end user(s). The 3 seperate forwarding to one master gives you the granularity you want, and also gives you a defacto backup scheme should the big DB get kludged. Auto forward is a dirt simple script that even I was able to accomplish from the examples provided.

JT,

Sorry, your full name does not come up but wanted to thank you for your suggestion. For now, I am look for just storage. Not interested in (at this time) if the clinics can view them because they all can view them locally. This is merely to have offsite storage as a backup in case a building burns down or something happens to the computers on that site. Its a pain to have managers do the backups and then do whatever with them. I would rather just have the dicoms come to me and then I can decide where they go and how they get backed up from the Orthanc server. This way I am the only one responsible for backing up the images. I am most likely using the server outside its scope of what it was intended to do. However, it does provide a nice future thought that if I can set up a “cloud like” type of deal, that would be interesting as well.

I like your idea and appreciate you offering it.

  • Craig

Dear Craig,

By the way, are you aware of the WebDAV built-in feature to access the content of Orthanc using most file explorers?
https://book.orthanc-server.com/users/webdav.html

Sébastien-