A Cloud Computing Medical Image Analysis and Collaboration Platform

In this paper we present a cloud computing platform for medical imaging which deals with the issues of scaling a traditionally single-user solution to a software-as-a-service solution. We will first introduce volume rendering for medical imaging, and the issues with volume rendering of medical images on the cloud. We will then describe our method for accelerating CPU based volume rendering on the cloud and for scaling the system to a software-as-a-service solution. Next, we describe the need for universal access to data and the methods and security inherent in the transfer of this data. We describe an analytic engine which is used to augment the solution with additional features. Finally we discuss the design decisions made, the lessons learned, and the results achieved.