Medical imaging viewer

1. A method for displaying an image comprising:

acquiring a first image having a first bit depth;

generating a plurality of sub-range image sets from the first image, each set including a plurality of sub-range images at a second bit depth lower than the first bit depth;

using a sub-range of interest (SROI) and a predetermined overlap parameter to determine a sub-range of at least one sub-range image in the plurality of sub-range image sets;

setting a sub-range of one of the plurality of sub-range image sets to a smaller range than a range of a different one of the plurality of sub-range image sets;

selecting a sub-range image for display;

performing pixel calculations on the selected sub-range image in a rendering engine operable to perform pixel calculation on the selected sub-range image at the second bit depth;

wherein each sub-range image in a set overlaps with a different sub-range image in the same set;

wherein the plurality of image sets spans the full range of the first image;

each set has a differing number of sub-range images;

wherein the sub-range images in each set overlap in pixel values for allowing transition between sub-range images during visualizations; and

displaying the image using the rendering engine.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein selecting a sub-range image for display includes:

determining a sub-range of interest having a width, a beginning and an end, in response to a user selection of a window level and a window width; and

selecting one of the plurality of sub-range image sets corresponding to the sub-range of interest falling within endpoints of the selected set.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising selecting the sub-range image for display from one of the plurality of sub-range images in the selected set corresponding to one of:

the sub-range of interest beginning falling within the selected sub-range image for display; and

the sub-range of interest end falling within the selected sub-range image for display.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving window and level adjustments; and

providing a full-depth interactive visualization, in at least 256 shades of gray, of the first image, having a bit depth greater than an 8-bit depth;

displaying the visualization in a web browser at approximately at least 15 frames per second in an environment functionally limited by the bit depth of the rendering engine and wherein the rendering engine is an 8-bit rendering engine.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising

receiving window and level adjustments; and

providing a full-depth interactive visualization, in at least 256 shades of gray, of the first image, having a bit depth greater than an 8-bit range;

transmitting the sub-range images over a network in an environment functionally limited by the network bandwidth connection having a rate less than one megabit per second; and

displaying the visualization in a web browser at approximately at least 15 frames per second.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the rendering engine is a rendering engine operable within a client web browser.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein generating a plurality of sub-range image sets at a second bit depth includes generating the plurality of sub-range image sets on the client.

8. The method of claim 6 wherein generating a plurality of sub-range image sets at a second bit depth includes generating a plurality of sub-range image sets on a server.

9. The method of claim 6 wherein the rendering engine provides a plurality of channels each at the second bit depth and further comprising:

packing shades of gray from selected overlapping sub-range images at the second bit depth from the plurality of sets, into pixels of the plurality of channels of the rendering image operating within the client web browser; and

expanding the grayscale using the plurality of channels to provide multichannel gray levels.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising visualizing the image by filtering the multichannel expanded grayscale to provide true grayscale without color components.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein the second bit depth is 8-bits and the plurality of channels are one of:

RGB; and

RGBA.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein displaying the image includes displaying the image interactively in response to receiving a selection of a window center and a window width.

13. The method of claim 12 further comprising identifying the selection of the window center and a window width based on monitoring movement of a pointer device having an indicator in a viewing region of a display screen.

14. The method of claim 12 further comprising identifying the selection of the window center and a window width based on receiving a selection of one of a plurality of preset window center and window width values.

15. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining the number of sets and range of sub-range images based on a full dynamic range and a characteristic of the first image.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the first image is a DICOM medical image.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the characteristic of the first DICOM image is at least one of:

a CR specific modality;

a computed tomography (CT) specific modality;

a magnetic resonance (MR) specific modality;

a mammography (MG) specific modality;

an intra-oral Radiography (IO) specific modality; and

a digital radiography (DX) specific modality.

18. The method of claim 1 further comprising predetermining the SROI and the predetermined overlap parameter as a function of one of an application and an image type.

19. The method of claim 1 , wherein the smaller range is approximately one-half of the range of the different one of the plurality of sub-range image sets.

20. A system for displaying an image, the system comprising:

a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including computer program logic encoded thereon that, when executed on the system provides an image display performing operations of:

acquiring a first image having a first bit depth;

generating a plurality of sub-range image sets from the first image, each set including a plurality of sub-range images at a second bit depth lower than the first bit depth;

using a sub-range of interest (SROI) and a predetermined overlap parameter to determine a sub-range of at least one sub-range image in the plurality of sub-range image sets;

setting a sub-range of one of the plurality of sub-range image sets to a smaller range than a range of a different one of the plurality of sub-range image sets;

selecting a sub-range image for display;

performing pixel calculations on the selected sub-range image in a rendering engine operable to perform pixel calculation on the selected sub-range image at the second bit depth;

wherein each sub-range image in a set overlaps with a different sub-range image in the same set;

wherein the plurality of image sets spans the full range of the first image;

each set has a differing number of sub-range images;

wherein the sub-range images in each set overlap in pixel values for allowing transition between sub-range images during visualizations; and

displaying the image using the rendering engine.

21. A computer program product having a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including computer program logic encoded thereon that, when executed on processor within a computerized device, provides a method for displaying an image by performing the operations of:

acquiring a first image having a first bit depth;

generating a plurality of sub-range image sets from the first image, each set including a plurality of sub-range images at a second bit depth lower than the first bit depth;

using a sub-range of interest (SROI) and a predetermined overlap parameter to determine a sub-range of at least one sub-range image in the plurality of sub-range image sets;

setting a sub-range of one of the plurality of sub-range image sets to a smaller range than a range of a different one of the plurality of sub-range image sets;

selecting a sub-range image for display;

performing pixel calculations on the selected sub-range image in a rendering engine operable to perform pixel calculation on the selected sub-range image at the second bit depth;

wherein each sub-range image in a set overlaps with a different sub-range image in the same set;

wherein the plurality of image sets spans the full range of the first image;

each set has a differing number of sub-range images;

wherein the sub-range images in each set overlap in pixel values for allowing transition between sub-range images during visualizations; and

displaying the image using the rendering engine.