A European network for virtual microscopy—design, implementation and evaluation of performance

• Published in: Virchows Archiv : an international journal of pathology 2009-04, Vol.454 (4), p.421-429
• Main Authors: Lundin, Mikael, Szymas, Janusz, Linder, Ewert, Beck, Hans, de Wilde, Peter, van Krieken, Han, García Rojo, Marcial, Moreno, Ignacio, Ariza, Aurelio, Tuzlali, Sitki, Dervişoğlu, Sergülen, Helin, Heikki, Lehto, Veli-Pekka, Lundin, Johan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Compression; Computer Communication Networks - instrumentation; Europe; Humans; Image compression; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Internet; Investigative techniques, diagnostic techniques (general aspects); Libraries, Digital; Medical sciences; Medicin och hälsovetenskap; Medicine & Public Health; Microscopy; Microscopy - methods; Original Article; Pathology; Pathology, Clinical - instrumentation; Pathology, Clinical - methods; Pathology. Cytology. Biochemistry. Spectrometry. Miscellaneous investigative techniques; Performance evaluation; Servers; User-Computer Interface; Viewing
• ISSN: 0945-6317; 1432-2307; 1432-2307
• DOI: 10.1007/s00428-009-0749-3

Web-based virtual microscopy has enabled new applications within pathology. Here, we introduce and evaluate a network of academic servers, designed to maximize image accessibility to users from all regions of Europe. Whole-slide imaging was utilized to digitize the entire slide set ( n  = 154) for the slide seminars of the 21st European Congress of Pathology. The virtual slides were mirrored to five academic servers across Europe using a novel propagation method. Functionality was implemented that automatically selects the fastest server connection in order to optimize the slide-viewing speed ( http://www.webmicroscope.net/ECP2007 ). Results show that during 6 months of monitoring the uptime of the network was 100%. The average viewing speed with the network was 3.1 Mbit/s, as compared to 1.9 Mbit/s using single servers. A good viewing speed (>2Mbit/s) was observed in 32 of 37 countries (86%), compared to 25 of 37 (68%) using single servers. Our study shows that implementing a virtual microscopy network spanning a large geographical area is technically feasible. By utilizing existing academic networks and cost-minimizing image compression, it is also economically feasible.