Rendering Medical Images using WebAssembly

Abstract

The rendering of medical images is a critical step in a variety of medical applications from diagnosis to therapy. Specialties such as radiotherapy and nuclear medicine must display complex images that are the fusion of several layers. Furthermore, the rise of artificial intelligence applied to medical imaging calls for viewers that can be used in research environments and that can be adapted by scientists. However, desktop viewers are often developed using technologies that are totally different from those used for Web viewers, which results in a lack of code reuse and shared expertise between development teams. In this paper, we show how the emerging WebAssembly standard can be used to tackle these issues by sharing the same code base between heavyweight viewers and zero-footprint viewers. Moreover, we propose a full Web viewer developed using WebAssembly that can be used in research projects or in teleradiology applications. The source code of the developed Web viewer is available as free and open-source software.