• ImageServer Dashboard. A new administration page that provides a snapshot of the entire ImageServer with information like the total Studies, number of Work Queue Items, File System status, and current Alerts.
• Series Level Manipulation. Enables users to move and delete series on the Study Details Page.
• New Stat priority level for WorkQueue entries. Stat entries are processed by the next available WorkQueue processing thread.
• Linking between Web GUI screens to improve usability. On the Studies page, links to the Work Queue and Study Integrity Queue appear for studies as appropriate.
• Improved support for remote DICOM Devices. Devices can now be configured so the ImageServer will only accept Key Objects and Presentation states, categorized by a Device Type, display the last known IP Address of DHCP device, and display the time stamp of the last access time.
• Expanded the search parameters on the Studies page. Added a date range and filtering based on Online/Nearline.
• Added mechanism for scheduling auto-routes. Auto routes can be scheduled to occur during a specified time window during the day.

• Enhanced UI.  Additional query parameters, reworking of the paging mechanism, and other general improvements.
• Alerts. An Alerts mechanism has been created to notify administrators when system related errors occur.
• Application Log.  The previous day's logs can now be viewed through the Web UI.
• Tracking of Deleted Studies. An optional feature has been added to track the deletion of studies through the Web UI.
• Compression on Initial Processing. A new rule type has been added to allow for compression of images as they are being processed. 
• Import Folder.  A mechanism has been added where DICOM files can be copied into a folder on a filesystem and the files are automatically imported into the ImageServer.
• Image Streaming Improvements.  DICOM Overlays are now supported and displayed in the CC ImageViewer via streaming..
• Auto-Recovery of Failed WorkQueue Entries.  A mechanism has been added to check the status of studies as they are being processed and to automatically cleanup the study if inconsistencies are found.  An Alert is created to notify the administrator when this occurs.

We've been working hard the past 6 months to put out a new version of ClearCanvas ImageServer.  We're excited to show off a number of new and significant features in the 1.3 release, which is the first official ImageServer release:

• Enhanced UI.  Significant improvements have been made to the look and feel of the User Interface.
• Study Editing.  Basic patient and study level DICOM tags can be edited from the Web UI.
• Demographic Data Verification.  A Study Integrity Queue has been added for studies/images where demographic data in the DICOM header of newly arriving images does not match the demographic data in the database for a study.
• Study Compression.  Rules can be setup to automatically compress studies in RLE, JPEG Baseline, JPEG Extended, or JPEG Lossless format.  There is flexibility when the compression is applied, and how it is applied through our rules engine.
• Filesystem Tiers.  Filesystems are now assigned to a filesystem tier and are migrated from higher level tiers to lower level tiers based on watermarks. 
• Image Streaming.  When used in conjuction with the ImageViewer, images can be streamed on demand.  This avoids having to retrieve images to your local machines and also mitigates against firewall problems that often plague the query/retrieve model.
• DICOM WADO.  Basic support for the application/dicom MIME type through WADO.
• Archiving.  Studies can now be archived to Hierchical Storage Management (HSM) style archives.  With the addition of archival support, the ImageServer can operate as a temporary cache, a long term archive, or a mixture of both.

We've been working hard the past 3 months to put out a new version of ClearCanvas ImageServer.  We're excited to show off a number of new features in 0.95:

• Created a new 64-bit installer.
• Added support for DICOM transfers in JPEG Baseline, JPEG Extended, JPEG Lossless, RLE, and JPEG2000.  The current functionality will attempt to send studies that are received compressed in the transfer syntax they were received in, or will decompress the studies if a compressed transfer syntax could not be negotiated over an association.  The ImageServer will not compress studies in a new transfer syntax before sending them.
• The Web GUI has been redesigned with a new look and feel.
• A large number of specific features were added to the web GUI:
  • DICOM sends at the Study level
  • Manual deletion of studies.
  • Added Study and Series details pages.
  • Added the ability to delete partitions with no studies on them and we now display a count of the number of studies on a partition.
  • Refactored the WorkQueue screen and added the ability to reset, delete, and set the priority of WorkQueue entries
  • Added the ability to see the current disk usage on filesystems when configuring watermarks.
  • New Service Scheduling page added to see when disk management is to occur and allowing disabling of disk management.
• Added a new policy mechanism for dealing with duplicate images.  This option is configured by partition, and can be configured to reject the duplicate images, send success but ignore duplicate images, always use the latest images received, or do a comparison and flag any differences found in the WorkQueue.
• Added a service for reapplying rules within the rules engine through the new Service Scheduling page.
• Added a service for rebuilding the database through the new Service Scheduling page. This service can be used when upgrading to new releases of the ImageServer software.

ImageServer 0.95 represents our second stop on our way to our full 1.0 release, which among other things, will feature powerful image streaming capability. As usual, let us know what you think on our forums!

ClearCanvas ImageServer 0.90 is an exciting milestone, as it is the next critical piece in our drive towards an open source, industrial strength RIS/PACS. Though not yet "feature complete" as a PACS archive, it has a lot of the core functionality one would expect from a DICOM image repository, such as support for DICOM query/retrieve and DICOM stores. It also supports the concept of parititioning, in which a single installation of ImageServer can support multiple, separate, virtual AEs. In addition, a powerful rules engine allows administrators to configure actions such as study deletion and autorouting via XML. Finally, a simple and clean web-based interface allows you to administer all of these functions with ease.

We're look forward to hearing what you think of ImageServer 0.90. Let us know in our new ImageServer Forum!