I hope this is an appropriate question. I have just spent some time going through the Orthanc site and this looks like a great project.
I am a university radiologist and I want to create a "mini-PACS" consisting of good teaching CT and MRI exams for my residents (all DICOMS are anonymized). I already have pdf's explaining the cases . . . I just need a mechanism for my students to view the cases. I am unable to get space on our hospital's PACS.
Would Orthanc be an appropriate way for me to set up a small PACS server on my Windows 7 machine (with a static IP address) so that my residents can use some sort of free web-based DICOM viewer to view cases remotely? It was not clear from the documentation if Orthanc can be set to accept remote viewer access or if Query or Retrieve functions are supported (this was mentioned briefly in a prior post).
I am not savvy enough to write a DICOM viewer but was hoping to have my residents use some sort of free viewer such as K-Pacs (or even some type of free mobile based solution). I would use Osirix as a PACS solution but need to deploy on my windows 7 machine.
Any comments or nudges in the appropriate direction would be greatly received.
Thanks for your feedback! This is indeed the right place to ask such a question.
For the time being, Orthanc does not support Query/Retrieve. I currently work on this feature, as well as on the development of a simple, independent Web-based DICOM viewer. When Query/Retrieve will be available, your residents should be able to retrieve images from Orthanc using viewers such as OsiriX, Ginkgo CADx or 3D Slicer. My plan is to release Query/Retrieve in the next few weeks, probably around the end of October. I have indeed previously written that it should be available during Summer 2013, unfortunately high-priority tasks have forced me to reorder the Orthanc roadmap in the meantime.
So, to answer honestly, Orthanc can only be considered as a possible solution to your problem if you can wait a couple of weeks before releasing your images.
It was not clear from the documentation if Orthanc can be set to accept remote viewer access or if Query or Retrieve functions are supported (this was mentioned briefly in a prior post).
As a complement to my previous answer, please note that you can already connect to the Web interface of Orthanc (that is known as “Orthanc Explorer”) from a remote computer, provided that the option “RemoteAccessAllowed” is set to “true” in the Orthanc configuration: https://code.google.com/p/orthanc/wiki/OrthancConfiguration
This way, your residents can already preview the images slice-by-slice using their Web browser. This might be sufficient for your use, e.g. if your database consists of 2D radiographies.