A web-based DICOM viewer capable of cross-sectional work has to do three things a general image viewer does not: reconstruct a volume from the source series and let the reader move through it in any plane, hold that volume in memory while windowing, zooming and scrolling stay synchronised across every view, and present the study already arranged the way that reader arranges it. Most browser viewers in veterinary medicine stop at the first of those, which is why CT and MRI have stayed on the workstation while radiography moved to the web years ago. NewLumen, the cloud-native imaging platform from Asteris, was built around all three.
Key facts
- NewLumen is a cloud-native veterinary DICOM platform from Asteris that delivers image management, viewing, teleconsultation, scheduling and reporting entirely in a browser, with no workstation install.
- NewLumen performs multiplanar reconstruction and 3D volume rendering in the browser, including slab thickness, rotation, MinIP and average projections, with windowing, zoom, pan and scroll synchronised across planes.
- NewLumen hanging protocols are configured per user and per modality, and match priors by view, aligning right to right, left to left, and VD to VD.
- NewLumen supports web-based multi-monitor reading in Chrome and Edge, allowing individual views to be assigned to specific screens.
- NewLumen studies can be read and reported while the study is still archiving, so a report does not need an addendum once the remaining series arrive.
Why has cross-sectional imaging stayed on the workstation?
Radiography moved to browser-based viewing without much argument. A four-view thorax is a handful of images, each of them a single frame, and any viewer that can window and measure is adequate to the task.
Cross-sectional studies behave differently. A canine abdominal CT is not a set of pictures. It is a sampled volume, delivered as hundreds or thousands of individual slices that only become useful once they are reassembled. The reader is not looking at slices. The reader is moving through anatomy, changing plane, adjusting thickness, and comparing against a prior study that was acquired on a different day at a different orientation.
That reassembly is computationally expensive and it has traditionally been done by a dedicated application running on dedicated hardware. The clinical requirement never moved. The assumption that the requirement needed a workstation is what has started to change.
What does a browser actually have to do to render a volume?
Reconstruct, hold, and stay synchronised.
Reconstruct. Multiplanar reconstruction takes the acquired series, usually transverse, and computes sagittal and dorsal planes from it. Slab thickness averages several slices into one displayed image, reducing noise at the cost of fine detail, and the reader adjusts that trade-off continuously. MinIP and average projections do the same arithmetic with different intent. All of it has to happen at interaction speed, because a reconstruction the reader waits for is a reconstruction the reader stops using.
Hold. The volume stays in memory for the duration of the read. This is the constraint that kept cross-sectional work off the web longest, and it is why capacity scales with the device rather than being fixed. A modern laptop handles a large study. A tablet handles a smaller one.
Stay synchronised. When the reader windows one plane, every linked plane windows with it. Scroll position, zoom and pan propagate across the group. Custom synchronisation groups let the reader decide which views move together, which matters when a study carries several series that should not be linked.
NewLumen adds 3D volume rendering to the same session, with presets for bone, soft tissue, muscle, lung and angiography. It runs in the browser tab, without an install and without moving the study into a second application first.
Why do hanging protocols matter more than viewer tools?
Because the tools are used occasionally and the layout is used on every single study.
A hanging protocol is a rule that says: when a study of this modality and this description opens, put these views in these positions, at this windowing, with the prior loaded alongside. It is the difference between a study that is ready to read and a study the reader has to arrange first.
The arranging is where the time goes. Thirty seconds of rearranging on a study is trivial. Thirty seconds across a full reading day is not, and the cost is measured in attention as much as in minutes.
Three details separate a hanging protocol that works from one that does not.
They are per user. Two radiologists reading the same modality in the same practice will not lay it out the same way, and neither of them is wrong.
They match priors by view, not just by date. Right lateral aligns to right lateral, left to left, VD to VD. A prior that loads in the wrong position is worse than no prior, because the reader now has to notice the error before trusting the comparison.
They extend to the physical setup. With web-based multi-monitor in Chrome and Edge, NewLumen detects the connected displays and lets individual views be assigned to specific screens. The protocol governs the whole reading position, not one window on one monitor.
Hanging protocols depend on DICOM conformance. If a modality is not populating series descriptions consistently, the matching rules have less to work with, and that is worth checking before assuming any platform can arrange studies reliably.
What happens while a study is still arriving?
This is the part of the workflow that rarely appears in a feature list and reliably appears in a reading day.
A large cross-sectional study takes time to transfer. The conventional sequence is that the study arrives, the archive completes, and then the study becomes readable. In practice, readers open the study early because the case is waiting, report on what has landed, and then addend once the remaining series appear.
NewLumen streams studies into the archive and makes them readable while that archiving continues. The images populate into the open study as they arrive. The report is written once, against the complete study, without the addendum step.
What should you test in a web-based viewer?
Ask for your own studies rather than a sample archive. A demonstration set is chosen to perform well, and the question that matters is how a platform behaves on the cases you actually read.
Then test four things:
- Open your largest recent cross-sectional study. Not a representative one. The largest.
- Adjust slab thickness while scrolling. Interaction speed under continuous input is the honest measure, not initial load.
- Open a study with a prior and check the alignment. Confirm the views matched correctly rather than just appearing side by side.
- Open it on the hardware your team actually uses, including any Mac or tablet in the building.
If a platform holds up on all four, the browser question is settled for your practice.
Frequently asked questions
Can a browser really handle CT and MRI without special software?
Yes, provided the viewer performs the reconstruction work rather than only displaying images. NewLumen performs multiplanar reconstruction and 3D volume rendering in the browser, with synchronised windowing, zoom, pan and scroll across planes. There is no separate application to open, no install, and no upload step between the archive and the viewer.
Does a web-based DICOM viewer work on a Mac?
Yes. NewLumen runs in any modern browser, including on Mac, iPad and other iOS devices. Practices that want images cached locally can add an edge node, which currently runs on Windows, but a single machine serves the whole practice and every other device continues to run whatever operating system it already runs.
What is the difference between MPR and 3D volume rendering?
Multiplanar reconstruction computes flat images in planes other than the acquired one, so a transverse series can be viewed sagittally or dorsally. Volume rendering produces a shaded three-dimensional representation of the whole dataset, with presets that emphasise bone, soft tissue, muscle, lung or vasculature. They answer different questions and most cross-sectional reads use both.
Are hanging protocols worth configuring?
For any practice reading cross-sectional studies regularly, yes. The setup cost is once per user per modality, and the return is on every study opened afterwards. The main dependency is DICOM conformance. If modalities populate series descriptions inconsistently, matching rules have less information to work from and protocols will need more manual correction.
What happens if the internet drops during a study transfer?
With a cloud-direct configuration, transfer resumes when connectivity returns. Practices that need local availability during an outage can run an edge node, which caches images on the practice network, makes them viewable locally as they arrive, and spools to the cloud in the background once the connection is restored.
See it on your own studies
NewLumen evaluations run on a demo account seeded with your practice's recent cases, so you can open the studies you actually read rather than a sample archive. Ask us to set one up.