If you use an Apple Mac computer system and prefer to use Osirix DICOM viewer (or other Mac DICOM viewers) to view radiology images, you can stream images from Cimar over the internet and view them on your Mac – Mac’s are notoriously efficient at manipulating complex images.

Streaming DICOM to Apple Mac hardware...

By design, Cimar software utilises Windows ActiveX components, requiring Internet Explorer (6.0 or later) web browser to run them. This is the standard Browser used by the NHS. Cimar is not Safari compliant and we do not provide support for Apple Mac systems. However you can push images from Cimar to your Mac. Here's how.

Cimar's Streaming viewer is crucial. This is the service component all users require for receiving streamed images, decrypting, decompressing and rendering them. Cimar's viewer runs only in Windows.

It is important to note that to view images from Cimar on your Mac device, you will need a dual-bootable system (Windows and MAC OS).  Parallels is one solution for this need and can be purchased from this link. http://www.parallels.com/uk/. You will need a degree of Mac system knowledge to set this up, prior to us being able to support your windows environment.

What is Parallels Desktop for Mac?

Parallels is a solution for Intel-Macs that enables you to running Windows on a Mac simultaneously with your Mac OS, without rebooting. You can run Windows-only applications such as Internet Explorer and Cimar's streaming DICOM viewer.

Because Windows is completely isolated from your Mac OS, there is no chance of infecting your Mac with Windows viruses. The one-click installation is relatively simple, and installs and configures your Windows hardware drivers.

With Parallels Desktop for Mac you can run applications you need without switching between Windows and Mac OS. The new feature - Coherence, shows Windows applications as if they were running natively on your Mac.

True "Drag and Drop" functionality lets you seamlessly drag and drop files and folders from Windows to Mac OS and vice versa. Parallels Desktop for Mac now shares the entire Mac file structure between the Mac OS and Windows – resolving concern about which copy of the file is the most recent. Once set up, Windows, your Mac OS, Parallels and Cimar interoperate as shown below:

Click to enlarge

Once you have installed the Cimar viewer Client on your Windows instance, images can be exported from Cimar's viewer to a local folder enabling Osirix (or another DICOM node) to import them.

In Osirix, you can either point its database and image source to this folder, or receive images directly using and AET connection between Cimar's viewer and Osirix. Now all images streamed to Cimar's viewer, can be viewed in Osirix simply and automatically. Please note, Cimar does supply or provide user support for Osirix Software.

Further technical advice is available from our support centre if required. If you encounter any problems, please contact us for assistance.