title: A European network for virtual microscopy--design, implementation and evaluation of performance.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. mikael.lundin@helsinki.fi
authors.forename: Mikael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lundin
authors.forename: Janusz
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Szymas
authors.forename: Ewert
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Linder
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Beck
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: de Wilde
authors.forename: Han
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: van Krieken
authors.forename: Marcial
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: García Rojo
authors.forename: Ignacio
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Moreno
authors.forename: Aurelio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ariza
authors.forename: Sitki
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tuzlali
authors.forename: Sergülen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dervişoğlu
authors.forename: Heikki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Helin
authors.forename: Veli-Pekka
authors.initials: VP
authors.lastname: Lehto
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lundin
mesh_terms: D003195:Computer Communication Networks / Q000295:instrumentation; D005060:Europe; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D020407:Internet; D046609:Libraries, Digital; D008853:Microscopy / Q000379:methods*; D010338:Pathology, Clinical / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D014584:User-Computer Interface