weasis-pacs-connector provides the easiest way to launch Weasis from a web context (see URL examples below) and to connect Weasis to any PACS supporting WADO or to a WEB API.

The master branch requires Java 8+ and the 6.x branch requires Java 7+.

This component gathers different services:

• /viewer launching Weasis with the patient ID, study UID... (can be configured to use a combination of UIDs or to hide some of them)
• /IHEInvokeImageDisplay launching Weasis at Patient and Study level, compliant to the IHE IID profile
• /viewer-applet same as /viewer but it can launch Weasis as Applet in a web page (the service returns an html page). This method is not recommended as several browsers block Java plugin.
• /manifest building the xml manifest (containing the necessary UIDs) consumed by Weasis to retrieve all the images by WADO requests
• /[name of the template] (default template: /weasis.jnlp) building a jnlp file from a template (jnlp template path, jnlp properties and jnp arguments can be passed via URL parameters, see the JNLP Builder documentation)

• Requires Java 8 and Servlet 3.1
• Redirection for getting jnlp protocol from a http request
• Support Java 9 in jnlp templates

• Multi-PACS configuration (can be requested simultaneously or individually)
• Allows to query the PACS through its database (not recommended)
• Generates new manifest 2.5 (supported by Weasis 2.5)
• Requires Java 7

• Used weasis-dicom-tools (based on dcm4che3) for building the manifest
• Starting Weasis and building manifest are executed in parallel (improve the time to get the images)
• The manifest is not embedded any more by default in the jnlp, only an url with an id can be called once within 5 min. That means clicking on a jnlp a second time won't show any images (this behavior is desirable for security reasons as most browsers downloads jnlp)
• Configure the maximum number of manifests treated simultaneous and the maximum life time of a building manifest process (5 min by default)
• Error messages (when building the manifest) are transmitted to the viewer via the manifest
• New context (/IHEInvokeImageDisplay) compliant to the IHE IID profile
• Parameters at patient level defined in IID profile (mostRecentResults, lowerDateTime, upperDateTime, modalitiesInStudy) are also available in the other contexts (/viewer, /viewer-applet and /manifest)
• Allows to have on different servers the following components: weasis-pacs-connector, PACS, Weasis, weasis-ext (additional plugins) and jnlp templates
• Major improvement of the JNLP builder servlet (allows dynamic injection of arguments, properties and templates)
• Option for DICOM query in TLS mode
• Launching Weasis as an Applet in web page
• Uploading the manifest by http POST
• Option to embed the manifest into the jnlp

Prerequisites: JDK 7 and Maven

• Execute the maven command mvn clean package in the root directory of the project and get the package from /target/weasis-pacs-connector.war. Official releases can be downloaded here.

• Use the loggerless profile for web application container which already embeds slf4j and log4j (like JBoss): mvn clean package -Ploggerless

Note: with a snapshot version, it can be necessary to build first the library weasis-dicom-tools

• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/IHEInvokeImageDisplay?requestType=PATIENT&patientID=97026728&mostRecentResults=2
  => query at patient level to get a number of the most recent studies
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/IHEInvokeImageDisplay?requestType=PATIENT&patientID=97026728&lowerDateTime=2010-01-01T12:00:00
  => query at patient level to get the studies which are older than a date
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/IHEInvokeImageDisplay?requestType=PATIENT&patientID=97026728&upperDateTime=2010-01-01T12:00:00
  => query at patient level to get the studies which are more recent than a date
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/IHEInvokeImageDisplay?requestType=PATIENT&patientID=97026728&modalitiesInStudy=MR,XA
  => query at patient level to get the studies containing MR or XA
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/IHEInvokeImageDisplay?requestType=PATIENT&patientID=97026728&containsInDescription=abdo,thorax
  => query at patient level to get the studies containing the string abdo or thorax (accent and case insensitive) in study description (from version 5.0.1)
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/IHEInvokeImageDisplay?requestType=STUDY&accessionNumber=1657271
  => query at study level with accessionNumber or studyUID

• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?patientID=9702672
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?patientID=9702672%5E%5E%5Etest
  => add IssuerOfPatientID as in hl7: patientID=9702672^^^test
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?patientID=97026728&patientID=PACS-2023231696
  => multiple patients
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?patientID=97026728&modalitiesInStudy=MR,XA
  => only studies containing MR or XA
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?patientID=97026728&containsInDescription=abdo,thorax
  => only studies containing the string abdo or thorax (accent and case insensitive) in study description (from version 5.0.1)
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?patientID=97026728&modalitiesInStudy=CT&upperDateTime=2010-01-01T12:00:00Z
  => only studies containing CT which are more recent than 2010-01-01 12:00:00 (UTC time, do not use 'Z' if the store files don't have a time zone)
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?studyUID=1.3.6.1.4.1.5962.1.2.2.20031208063649.855
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?accessionNumber=3224252
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?seriesUID=1.2.840.113704.1.111.4924.1273631010.17
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?objectUID=1.2.840.113704.1.111.3520.1273640118.5118

Note: It is allowed to have multiple UIDs for patient, study, series and instance but within the same level. The configuration file enables to set which ID is allowed and if a combination of UIDs is required. When using a combination of UIDs, the order is not relevant.

• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer-applet?patientID=97026728
  => same as /viewer but it can launch Weasis as Applet in a webpage.

• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?upload=manifest
  => with the parameter "Content-Type: text/xml; charset=UTF-8" and the manifest in the body of the POST request

• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?patientID=97026728&embedManifest
  => embedManifest parameter will embed the manifest into the jnlp (in this case building manifest is executed before starting Weasis and the images can be always displayed via the jnlp file)

• http://launcher-weasis.rhcloud.com/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?arg=$image:get%20-u%20https://dcm4che.atlassian.net/wiki/download/attachments/3670024/weasis-mpr.png
  => open image from an URL (from weasis 2.5)

• http://launcher-weasis.rhcloud.com/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?studyUID=1.3.6.1.4.1.5962.1.2.2.20031208063649.855&mhs=1024m
  => modify in jnlp the maximum memory used by the application (max-heap-size="1024m")
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?studyUID=1.3.6.1.4.1.5962.1.2.2.20031208063649.855&mfv=1
  => modify the manifest version (default is 2.5, old one is 1 - required by Weasis lesser than 2.5)
• to inject other properties or arguments see the JNLP Builder documentation

Build an XML file containing the UIDs of the images which will be retrieved in Weasis. There is an XLS schema to validate the content of xml. This file can be either compressed in gzip or uncompressed. Here are examples:

• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/manifest?studyUID=1.3.6.1.4.1.5962.1.2.2.20031208063649.855
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/manifest?studyUID=1.3.6.1.4.1.5962.1.2.2.20031208063649.855&gzip
  => return a gzip-compressed XML file
• http://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/manifest?patientID=97026728&modalitiesInStudy=MR&upperDateTime=2014-05-20T12:00:00
  => only studies containing MR which are more recent than 2014-05-20 12:00:00

See the JNLP Builder documentation

It requires a web application container like Tomcat or JBoss.

Go here and download these Weasis files.

• From the folder with the latest version number:
  • [weasis.war] Weasis Web distribution which run with Java Web Start.
  • [weasis-ext.war] Optional package for additional plug-ins (e.g. exporting the images to build an ISO image for CD/DVD)
  • [weasis-i18n.war] Optional package for Weasis translations
• From weasis-pacs-connector folder:
  • [weasis-pacs-connector.war] Connector between the archive and the viewer
  • [dcm4chee-web-weasis.jar] Optional package for dcm4che-web3

The default configurations works directly with dcm4che-web3. To override the configuration of weasis-pacs-connector, download weasis-connector-default.properties and rename it weasis-pacs-connector.properties. This file named weasis-pacs-connector.properties and dicom-dcm4chee.properties must be placed in the classpath of the application:

• In JBoss inferior to version 7, the best location would be "/server/default/conf/"
• In JBoss 7.2 and 8.x, see here
• In JBoss Wildfly 10, the location is wildfly/standalone/configuration
• In Tomcat just specify the directory in shared.loader property of /conf/catalina.properties

To add properties or arguments in the JNLP there are two possibilities:

1. Add parameters via the URL, see the JNLP Builder documentation (arg, prop, and src)
2. Change the default template, see jnlp.default.name in weasis-connector-default.properties

weasis-pacs-connector 6.1 generates new manifests and requires Weasis 2.5 and superior. However it is possible to run previous version of Weasis by modifying the weasis-connector-default.properties:

1. Set the property manifest.version=1
2. Uncomment the property jnlp.default.name=weasis1.jnlp
3. Uncomment the property jnlp.applet.name=weasisApplet1.jnlp

Note: when multiple archives are configured, only the references of the first archive containing images will be incorporated in the manifest 1.0. Multiple archives can only work with Weasis 2.5.

For dcm4chee-arc-light:

• Change the configuration of the WADO server property in dicom-dcm4chee.properties: pacs.wado.url=${server.base.url}/dcm4chee-arc/aets/DCM4CHEE/wado

An alternative way to launch Java Webstart (JWS) by changing the scheme of URL:

• jnlp://localhost:8080/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?patientID=9702672
• jnlps://localhost:8443/weasis-pacs-connector/viewer?patientID=9702672 (SSL connection)

Advantages of jnlp protocol:

• Works at the system level (association of a MIME type with an application: jnlp => JWS)
• Works with most of browsers (Chrome, IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera...)
• Browsers do not download jnlp anymore. JWS reads directly the URL (do not show the popup "This application will run with unrestricted access" at every launch)
• Works with other applications which are requesting the default system application for the jnlp protocol
• No change is required at the client side or at the server side, only replacing the scheme of the jnlp URL is enough
• Registration of jnlp handler is available in Oracle Java Runtime installer from JRE 8_111 and in the Java 9 installer.
  • Works out of box on Windows
  • On Mac OS X, it could be necessary to run once Java Webstart to register the jnlp handler (/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Resources/javawslauncher.app)
  • On Linux, a configuration is required
• An implementation has be done on IcedTea-WEB (alternative of the Oracle JWS) and it will be available in the next release (1.7).

For more informations:

• Oracle JWS documentation
• About the configuration in dcm4chee

There are different ways to treat the security aspects. Here are some:

• Make a proxy servlet (URL forwarding) to handle authentication and authorization you want and configure weasis-pacs-connector to be called only by the proxy server (hosts.allow=serverhostname)
• Configure weasis-pacs-connector for UIDs encryption in the URL with a paraphrase (encrypt.key=paraphraseForIDs: just uncomment and set a new key). It works by default with dcm4chee-web3. For other web interface it requires to use the same algorithm with the same key.
• Configure weasis-pacs-connector for accepting only limited IP/host
• Configure weasis-pacs-connector for accepting only requests with a combination of several UIDs

See How to launch Weasis from any environments