Galilei’s image archiving system comprises the storage, conversion and viewing of different image formats as thumbnails, display images and originals as well as their link in the database as a medical parameter of a proband. At the same time, it is considered safe that an imaging process has already been installed, and that the images only need to be allocated to the proband and/or that the images have to be requested, prepared and then allocated.

The storage and allocation of the images to an experimentee record can be carried out in various workflows. Firstly, an individual case with access to a certain image file and its manual link as a medical parameter may be used or a work list with automatic storage and link to one or several image directories.

Secondly, the generation of a work list will cause the set-up of a parallel directory structure on the HDU. The directory structure contains all key criteria in its directory names so that the images to be archived or the image series only need to be saved to the corresponding directory by means of drag and drop.

By means of a „hot folder“, the directories are packed and transported to the image archiving server, where Perl routines and Image Magic ensure the image conversion into various image formats and the link of the image files as medical records in the database. The routines run down completely transparent for the user.

The image archiving system is supplied as a pre-configured hardware / software system, and at present can be expanded from a storage capacity of a few 100 MB to 7.4 terabyte by means of standard NAS (Network Attached Storage) components.