DICOM Routing using Capacitor

Conditional routing and compression to multiple PACS.

DICOM Capacitor is a store-and-forward DICOM router, and conditional routing is among the simplest of its many features.

Here, we show an example of a configuration that makes Capacitor:

  • Receive studies from any modality,
  • Compress images on the way to a primary PACS, and
  • Re-route DICOM SR instances to a secondary PACS.

Getting Started

To begin, collect information about our PACS’.

For this example, we have gathered the following:

AE TitleIP AddressPortPreferred Transfer Syntax
Primary PACSIMAGEPACS192.168.1.200104JPEG 2000 Lossless
Secondary PACSREPORTPACS192.168.1.201104Any

We’re ready to install.

Install Capacitor

  1. Click this link to download the latest evaluation of DICOM Capacitor:
    https://store.fluxinc.ca/files/DCP/latest
  2. Run the installer and complete the installation process.
  3. Once finished, open DICOM Capacitor Control using your start menu, and, if needed, follow the prompts to obtain an evaluation license.
  4. Start, and then stop, the “DICOM Capacitor” service using either the Control applet, the Windows Services snap-in, or by running the following commands:
$ net start DICOMCapacitorService
$ net stop DICOMCapacitorService

Close DICOM Capacitor Control if it’s still open because all further steps will be performed outside the user interface.

Configure Capacitor

All Capacitor configuration files live in the %ProgramData%\Flux Inc\DICOM Capacitor folder.

Here are the three files we will be editing:

  • config.yml, which defines Capacitor’s operational settings, and
  • nodes.yml, which defines all destination (and source) nodes
  • routings.yml, which defines the routing rules

Set Capacitor Defaults

  1. Open config.yml in your YAML text editor — we recommend Atom, or Visual Studio Code.
  2. Confirm the value of scpPort:

    scpPort: 1040

    This is the port on which Capacitor will accept C-STORE (and C-ECHO) associations.
  3. Turn on the routing module by adding “route” the filters setting:

    filters: route

3. Finally, save and close config.yml.

Define the Two Nodes

Next, we define our destination nodes.

  1. First, open nodes.yml in your YAML text editor.
  2. Replace the contents of nodes.yml with:
# Primary PACS
- NodeRole: Storage
  AeTitle: IMAGEPACS
  HostName: 192.168.1.200
  Impersonate: true
  Port: 104
  TransferSyntax: JPEG2000Lossless
  MinimumLineSpeed: 500

# Secondary PACS
- NodeRole: Storage
  AeTitle: REPORTPACS
  HostName: 192.168.1.201
  Impersonate: true
  Port: 104
  MinimumLineSpeed: 500

According to this node definition file, Capacitor will:

  • Listen for C-ECHO and C-STORE associations on port 1040.
  • Respond and automatically route to AE titles IMAGEPACS and REPORTPACS1.
  • Compress all instances bound for IMAGEPACS to JPEG 2000 Lossless.
  • Impersonate, i.e., use the sending modality’s own AE title, when forwarding to these destinations.

1 Capacitor will also respond to DCP_IMAGEPACS, and DCP_REPORTPACS in the same way.

All that remains is for us to configure our routing rules.

Define DICOM Routing Rules

All route definitions live in a file called routings.yml.

  1. Create routings.yml if it does not already exist, and open it in your YAML editor.
  2. Paste in the following content and save the file:
---
- AeTitles:
    - IMAGEPACS
  Conditions:
    - Tag: 0008,0016
      MatchExpression: ^1\.2\.840\.10008\.5\.1\.4\.1\.1\.88\.[\d]{1,2}$
  Actions:
    - Description: Re-route to REPORTPACS
      Type: add_destination
      Target: REPORTPACS
      RemoveOriginal: true

This definition tells Capacitor’s routing module to:

  • Consider only instances bound for IMAGEPACS
  • Determine if the SOP Class UID (0008,0016) matches the regular expression ^1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.[\d]{1,2}$, which matches all DICOM SR types
  • If so, then add the destination REPORTPACS, which is defined in our nodes.yml file, and
  • Remove the original route for this instance

We’re ready to test.

Start Capacitor and Inspect the Logs

  1. Start the DICOM Capacitor service using the Windows Services snap-in, or:

    $ net start DICOMCapacitorService
  2. Next, open and inspect
    %ProgramData%\Flux Inc\DICOM Capacitor\logs\capacitor_service.log

The last few lines in this log should confirm that Capacitor is running and accepting connections on behalf of our two nodes.


Comment below with any questions, and don’t hesitate to reach out for our help!

Scan to PACS with TuPACS

We’re happy to announce the release of TuPACS — our unique and super-friendly take on the scan-to-PACS application.

In our design, we’ve focused on:

  • Ease-of-use. We want you to touch TuPACS as little as possible before your documents are on their way.
  • A large and readable user interface. You should never have to hunt for the next button to press.
  • A low price point. We’re aware the other PACS scan applications can be expensive both to purchase and to renew. TuPACS will help lower the annual bill.

Here’s how to use it:

  • Scan a document using your document scanner; TuPACS will pop to the foreground.
  • Rotate and rearrange document pages using TuPACS big and obvious buttons.
  • Search your DICOM Modality Worklist using Accession, MRN, or Patient Name, and
  • Send your scan to PACS while you prepare your next document

TuPACS works with:

  • Windows 7 and up
  • Any DICOM-compliant PACS
  • Any Document Scanner that supports scan-to-disk functionality using JPEG, TIFF, JPG or GIF formats

Visit the TuPACS product page to learn more, or simply download an evaluation copy.

Import DICOM CDs & DVDs to PACS

What is a DICOM Gobbler?

  • It lives in the system tray;
  • It watches for DICOM CDs and DVDs;
  • It offers to import all DICOM instances to your local PACS;
  • It hides back into the tray as it imports; and
  • It’s ready to be installed!

We are happy to announce that DICOM Gobbler is now ready for general use.

DICOM Gobbler was born thanks to a request from Bonita Community Health Center — one of our oldest customers. John at Bonita asked for a DICOM import utility that is unobtrusive, easy-to-use, and can decompress proprietary formats, like JPEG2000, to make them compatible with their older Merge PACS viewer.

An alpha version of Gobbler was released in mid-2016, and since then it has already been deployed in five continents, including at a cardiology centre in Brazil, a hospital in Israel, and dental x-ray facilities in Australia and China.

If you’d like to learn a little more about Gobbler, then please

Visit the Product Page

or, if you’re the impatient type, then

Download an Evaluation Copy