What Is DICOMweb?

What Is DICOMweb

DICOMweb is the part of the DICOM standard that defines web services over HTTP, as an alternative to the classic DIMSE network protocol. Instead of a dedicated port and association negotiation, a client makes ordinary HTTP requests — which is what makes a browser, a portal or a firewalled viewer able to talk to an archive at all.

Three services carry most of the traffic. QIDO-RS searches for studies, series or instances and answers with metadata, typically JSON. WADO-RS retrieves — the instances themselves, their metadata, rendered frames or bulk pixel data. STOW-RS stores, sending instances to the archive. A fourth, UPS-RS, manages worklist items.

Practically, DICOMweb means an archive is reachable with a URL, standard HTTP status codes and an Authorization header — so a token can travel in a header instead of being pasted into a query string, and access can be brokered by the same infrastructure as the rest of a hospital’s web traffic.

It does not replace DIMSE everywhere: C-FIND, C-GET, C-MOVE and C-STORE remain how most archives and modalities talk to each other inside the network.

In Weasis, see DICOMweb configuration.