Optimizing Image & Video Loading in OHIF with Orthanc for Large PACS Systems

General
1

Hello everyone,

We are exploring ways to optimize image and video loading performance in OHIF Viewer when dealing with a PACS system containing a large volume of imaging data. One specific challenge we are facing is ultrasound exams with videos, which take a long time to load.

We would like to understand:

  1. How does Orthanc handle image and video retrieval efficiency when dealing with large datasets?
  2. Are there any built-in caching mechanisms to speed up loading, especially for frequently accessed studies?
  3. Has anyone implemented solutions such as Solr indexing or other approaches to enhance search and retrieval performance within Orthanc?
  4. Any best practices or recommended plugins to reduce loading times and improve the experience for radiologists and doctors?

Any insights or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

2

Orthanc Version : 1.11.2
Viewer Version : 5.0.0

3

Hi,

First of all, you should update to the latest version (Orthanc 1.12.7).

OHIF 5.0.0: ??? latest version is 3.10.0 and was released yesterday.

Once you have updated, you should analyse your logs and browser dev tools to understand which API route is taking a lot of time and then, we can start discussing :wink:

However, large cardio ultrasound are sometimes 1GB files, it will always require a lot of time to be loaded in the browser, no magic here…

Best,

Alain

4

Apologize for the Confusion. We realize now that the confusion came from looking at the version field inside platform/viewer/package.json, which shows 5.0.0. That’s actually the internal npm package version (@ohif/viewer), and not the OHIF Viewer release version.

Our productVersion is 3.3.0, which we now understand reflects the actual OHIF Viewer release. We’ll look into upgrading to 3.10.0 to take advantage of the latest improvements.

Appreciate the clarification and support!

5

Hi @alainmazy :-

Thank you for the quick responses and guidance earlier — very helpful!

We just wanted to clarify one important point:
The ultrasound exams we are referring to are not cardiac ultrasound studies, but rather general ultrasound videos (non-cardiac). The confusion may have come from the assumption around large file sizes typically associated with cardiac exams, but in our case, these are standard ultrasound studies that include embedded video clips — and they still pose significant loading challenges in OHIF Viewer.

We understand that large video files inherently take time, but we’re specifically looking for any optimization strategies for this kind of data — such as streaming options, caching mechanisms, plugin suggestions, or efficient retrieval configurations — that could improve performance in real-world use.

Once again, really appreciate the continued support and looking forward to any further insights!

Best regards,
Jemit.