Development of a Batched Image Delete System for Multi-vender Picture Archiving and Communication System Environment

Abstract

A picture archiving and communication system (PACS) for multi-vendor imaging servers is useful, since it can provide a variety of image-processing services. However, to delete an image file in the PACS, it is necessary to delete not only the image but all its associated images that are stored in multiple servers: this is a lengthy and painstaking process. To reduce this workload, we have developed a system consisting of a computer program with a graphical user interface that can delete the target image and all related images by means of batch processing. The developed system creates an extensible markup language (XML)-format file that describes the operation for deleting an image and forwards the XML file to the main server. Using a Windows file-sharing system (SMB/CIFS), each server shares the XML file and deletes the images in its own database in response to the instructions described in the XML file. We can also rigorously manage information concerning the deleted images using the information that is output from the main server to external storage. We also discuss the degree of load reduction in our system compared with that of ordinary systems.