{
  "id": 5763441,
  "title": "My GSoC Journey with InVesalius: Bringing PACS Integration to InVesalius",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/05/my-gsoc-journey-with-invesalius-bringing-pacs-integration-to",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-05T10:45:34.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/muneeb_ahmad_18a2b2f10a70/my-gsoc-journey-with-invesalius-bringing-pacs-integration-to-invesalius-3m39"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "During my Google Summer of Code (GSoC) project with InVesalius, I contributed to the integration of Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) capabilities into the open-source medical imaging software. PACS is a system that manages and communicates medical images using the DICOM standard. This integration aimed to enable remote connections with hospital servers, eliminating the need for external tools.\n\nInVesalius is a well-established open-source medical imaging software developed in Brazil, which generates physical models from 2D images acquired through CT or MRI scans. The software allows healthcare professionals to create 3D anatomical representations for various medical purposes. However, the software did not initially support remote connections with hospital servers (PACS), requiring the use of external tools for data exchange.\n\nTo address this issue, I utilized libraries like pynetdicom and pydicom to build methods that support querying hospital servers for image search and retrieval over the network. The integration architecture followed a basic flow: Connectivity → Search → Retrieval → Local Storage. The key DICOM operations involved were C-ECHO to check server connectivity, C-FIND to search for patients across available nodes/servers, C-MOVE to retrieve/download images, C-GET as a fallback option for C-MOVE, and C-STORE to store retrieved images in a pre-specified folder.\n\nFrom a user interface perspective, I implemented a search bar and associated dialogs for searching, a UI to manage nodes/servers for image retrieval, and an option to download patient images at different hierarchy levels such as patient, study, and series. Additionally, I provided a cancellation option to stop downloads, clean up directories, and a preferences dialog for network options to set download directories, choose download methods, and configure application settings. The interface prevented UI freezes by wrapping sync functions into asynchronous methods using thread executors.\n\nEngineering challenges during the project included handling the fallback from C-MOVE to C-GET if C-MOVE failed, implementing graceful error handling, and managing the cancellation, cleanup, and progress tracking of downloads. I addressed these challenges by creating an orchestrator to handle both methods and fall back to C-GET when necessary. I also utilized wx.CallAfter functions for cancellation, progress tracking, and error handling, and wrapped query methods with asynchronous methods to prevent UI freezes.",
  "summary": "My GSoC Journey with InVesalius: Bringing PACS Integration to InVesalius For the past three months I have been contributing at Invesalius as a GSOC contributor. It has been quite a fun summer and now that I have finally completed the project I wanted to share a sneak peak of what I did and learnt and about the org. InVesalius A well-established open-source medical imaging software developed in…",
  "key_points": [
    "Implemented PACS integration for InVesalius software",
    "Utilized pynetdicom, pydicom libraries for server communication",
    "Developed search, retrieval, and storage interface features"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}