DicomWeb Retrieve via Zip

Supplement 211 adds the application/zip media type to the RESTful Web Services in PS3.18. It enables retrieving an entire DICOM study or series as a single zip format file.

The primary use case is to enable researchers in analytics / machine learning to use DICOMweb to retrieve studies, series, or other collections of images for training purposes. DICOMweb currently provides a means to retrieve an entire study or an entire series using the multipart/related media type, but this requires special non-browser implementations to retrieve the content because multipart/related is not currently supported by any of the major browsers.

A secondary use case is to provide consumers with browser access to a DICOM study using a ZIP file, which will provide patients or caregivers browser access that is simpler than that provided by a multipart/related response must be programmatically interpreted.

Supplement 211 will be further presented and discussed with the Base Working Group in a coming meeting before Public Comment voting.