ImageBox 2 - Efficient and Rapid Access of Image Tiles from Whole-Slide Images Using Serverless HTTP Range Requests

Area of Science:

• Digital Pathology
• Medical Imaging
• Cloud Computing

Background:

• Whole-slide images (WSIs) are high-resolution scans of pathology slides, often exceeding gigabytes in size.
• Existing systems require dedicated tiling servers for WSI access, limiting flexibility.

Purpose of the Study:

• To enable HTTP web access for Whole Slide Image tiles without local tiling servers.
• To shift image decoding and tiling responsibilities to the calling agent (ImageBox).

Main Methods:

• ImageBox2 facilitates remote WSI tile access using byte-level HTTP range requests.
• This approach bypasses the need for local disk access and dedicated tiling servers.
• It supports cloud-based storage solutions like Amazon S3, aligning with serverless architectures.

Main Results:

• The ImageBox2 server handles tiling and decoding, simplifying client-side operations.
• Remote WSI access is achieved through standard HTTP, enhancing compatibility.
• This method enables tiling for images lacking dedicated servers.

Conclusions:

• The described methodology enables cloud-friendly tiling for WSIs from various sources.
• It preserves normal client connection semantics, promoting a web of HTTP-connected WSIs.
• This solution provides tiling capabilities where local servers are unavailable.