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Google Cloud Healthcare

The Google Cloud Healthcare API is a powerful option for storing medical imaging data in the cloud.

An alternative to deploying your own PACS is to use a software-as-a-service provider such as Google Cloud. The Cloud Healthcare API promises to be a scalable, secure, cost effective image storage solution for those willing to store their data in the cloud. It offers an almost-entirely complete DICOMWeb API which requires tokens generated via the OAuth 2.0 Sign In flow. Images can even be transcoded on the fly if this is desired. The Cloud Healthcare API is a very attractive option because it allows us to avoid deploying the Meteor server entirely. We can just deploy OHIF as a client-only static site application.

Setup a Google Cloud Healthcare Project​

  1. Create a Google Cloud account
  2. Create a project in Google Cloud
  3. Enable the Cloud Healthcare API for your project.
  4. (Optional): Create a Dataset and Data Store for storing your DICOM data
  5. Enable the Cloud Resource Manager API for your project.

Note: If you are having trouble finding the APIs, use the search box at the top of the Cloud console.

  1. Go to APIs & Services > Credentials to create an OAuth Consent screen and fill in your application details.

  2. Go to APIs & Services > Credentials to create a new set of credentials:

  • Choose the "Web Application" type

  • Set up an OAuth 2.0 Client ID

  • Add your domain (e.g. http://localhost:3000) to Authorized JavaScript origins.

  • Add your domain, plus _oauth/google (e.g. http://localhost:3000/_oauth/google) to Authorized Redirect URIs.

  • Save your Client ID for later.

  1. (Optional): Enable Public Datasets that are being hosted by Google: https://cloud.google.com/healthcare/docs/resources/public-datasets/

Run the viewer with your OAuth Client ID​

  1. Open the config/oidc-googleCloud.json file and change YOURCLIENTID to your Client ID value.
  2. Run the OHIF Viewer using the oidc-googleCloud.json configuration file
cd OHIFViewer
METEOR_PACKAGE_DIRS="../Packages" meteor npm install
METEOR_PACKAGE_DIRS="../Packages" meteor --settings ../config/oidc-googleCloud.json

Running via Docker​

OHIF is also providing a Docker container which can connect to Google Cloud Healthcare with a Client ID which is provided at runtime. This is a very simple method to get up and running. Internally, the container is running Nginx to serve the Standalone Viewer.

  1. Install Docker (https://www.docker.com/)
  2. Run the Docker container, providing a Client ID as an environment variable. Client IDs look like xyz.apps.googleusercontent.com.
docker run --env CLIENT_ID=$CLIENT_ID --publish 3000:80 ohif/viewer-google-cloud:latest

Building the ohif/viewer-google-cloud Docker Image​

The ohif/viewer-google-cloud Docker image is built as follows. The Dockerfile and nginx.conf are in the /dockersupport/viewer-google-cloud folder.

  1. Install Meteor
  2. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/OHIF/Viewers.git
cd Viewers
  1. Install meteor-build-client-fixed2 so you can build the Standalone Viewer
npm install -g meteor-build-client-fixed2
  1. Build the Standalone client-only OHIF Viewer
cd OHIFViewer/
METEOR_PACKAGE_DIRS="../Packages" meteor npm install
METEOR_PACKAGE_DIRS="../Packages" meteor-build-client-fixed2 ../dockersupport/viewer-google-cloud/build -s ../config/oidc.json
  1. Build the Docker image
cd ../dockersupport/viewer-google-cloud
docker build -t ohif/viewer-google-cloud .
  1. Run the Docker image using an OAuth Client ID
docker run --env CLIENT_ID={$someID}.apps.googleusercontent.com --publish 3000:80 ohif/viewer-google-cloud