Image Viewer > Administration > System Configuration

This is a premium feature and may not be available in all installations.

This page configures the DICOM printers available to all Workstation users on this computer. Use of the print feature requires that the Workstation's local DICOM server be configured.

From this screen, you can do the following:

•	Add Printer: Click on this tool to open the DICOM Printer Editor and create a new printer. The name of the printer must be unique.

•	Edit Printer: Select a printer to enable this tool. Click on this tool to open the DICOM Printer Editor and make updates to the printer. The name of the printer must be unique.

•	Delete Printer: Select a printer to enable this tool. Click on this tool to delete the selected printer.

•	Verify Printer: To see if there is connectivity to the printer, select a printer and click the Verify button. A message box will appear indicating whether or not the connection was successful.

•	Set Default Printer: Clicking on the checkbox in the Default column beside a printer will make the selected printer the default printer. The default printer will be automatically selected when printing images. Only one printer can be the default.

Tip

•	Although the ClearCanvas Workstation does not support multiple printer "profiles", you can work around this by adding multiple printer entries. Each printer can be configured to connect to the same physical printer but with a different name and set of printer options.

Basic Printer Configuration

The DICOM printer editor allows you to select the default options. Once saved, these options will be loaded automatically when printing images. Please consult the DICOM Conformance Statement of your printer when making changes to these options.

Device Section

This section contains options that identify the printer and affect network connectivity. All options are mandatory.

Name	A unique name to identify the printer.
AE Title	The AE Title of the printer. It should be uppercase and should not exceed 16 characters.
Host	The host name of the printer. It can also be an IP address.
Port	The port on which the printer is listening for print requests.

Resolution (DPI) Section

When images are sent to the printer, ClearCanvas Workstation first sizes them to fit the available space. The printer may then resize the received image(s) again to fit on the film. This "double interpolation" introduces artifacts in the image. The settings in this section tell the Workstation what the resolution of the printer is, so the images sent to the printer are as close to the physical size as possible. The printer will not need to resize as much to fit the image into the printed area. The resolution used depends on the "Requested Resolution" option.

Although it is not necessary to change these values, it is highly recommended that you are able to determine and specify the exact resolution(s) that your printer is capable of, especially if you want to try the “True Size” printing option.

Standard Resolution	The resolution of the printer that is most commonly used. For example: 254 DPI converts to 0.1mm between printed pixels.
High Resolution	The higher resolution supported by the printer.

Layout Section

This section specifies how images are arranged on the film.

Film Size

Specifies the size of the film.

The available options are:

Automatic
8 in x 10 in	8.5 in x 11 in
10 in x 12 in	10 in x 14 in
11 in x 14 in	11 in x 17 in
14 in x 14 in	14 in x 17 in
24 cm x 24 cm	24 cm x 30 cm
A4 (210 mm x 297 mm)	A3 (297 mm x 420 mm)

Selecting the Automatic option will let the Workstation select the smallest film size that will fit the images being printed. In this mode, Film Orientation is determined automatically and Format is always 1x1. Additional parameters for the Automatic option may be configured in Advanced Configuration.

Film Orientation

Specifies the orientation of the film.

The available options are:

Portrait: vertical film position

Landscape: horizontal film position

Format

Specifies how images are arranged on a film. This is just like setting your image box layout in the viewer (e.g. 2x2).

Workstation supports Standard, Row major and Column major format.

Standard C x R:

•	Film contains equal size rectangular image boxes with C columns and R rows. For example, a Standard 4 x 2 format looks like:

Row R1, R2:

•	Film contains rows with equal size rectangular image boxes with R1 images in the first row and R2 images in the second row. For example, a Row 1,2 format looks like:

Column C1, C2:

•	Film contains columns with equal size rectangular image boxes with C1 images in the first column and C2 images in the second column. For example, a Column 1, 2 format looks like:

The available options are:

Standard 1 x 1	Standard 2 x 1	Standard 4 x 1	Row 1, 2
Standard 1 x 2	Standard 2 x 2	Standard 4 x 2	Column 1, 2
	Standard 2 x 4	Standard 4 x 4

Film/Quality Section

This section specifies the type of film that will be used and the resolution quality of the printer.

Destination

Specifies the actual physical location of the correct size medium on which you are intending to print. You may need to set this value, and its value may depend on the value for Film Size.

The available options are:

Default (as specified by the server)

Magazine

Processor

Bin_0 to Bin_9

Medium

Specifies the actual physical film used by the printer. Its value may depend on the value for Film Destination.

The available options are:

Paper

Clear Film

Blue Film

Mammo Clear Film

Mammo Blue Film

Requested Resolution

DICOM only allows for the printer to provide two options for resolution: Standard and High. The actual resolution values mentioned above are a characteristic of the printer itself and are used only by ClearCanvas Workstation in sizing the image to send to the printer.

Image Section

This section specifies the density of the pixels outside of the printed area, and the type of interpolation performed on the image (by the printer).

Border Density

Specifies the density of the film areas surrounding and between images on the film. This value may depend on the value for Film Medium.

The available options are:

Default (as specified by the server)

Black

White

Empty Image Density

Specifies the colour of pixels in the area on the film that contains no image. For example, if the Standard 2x1 format is used, and only one image is printed, "Empty Image Density = Black" will fill the unprinted image box with black pixels. This value may depend on the value for Film Medium.

The available options are:

Default (as specified by the server)

Black

White

Magnification Type

Specifies the interpolation type used to resize an image. If you’ve set the values for Resolution accurately, this value isn’t normally going to be that important, as it refers to the type of interpolation the printer should use to resize images. ClearCanvas Workstation sends images that are already very close to the correct size, so it is not typically very important to set this value. If you are going to set this value, or if you are seeing “double interpolation” artifacts on the printer, it is recommended that this be set to “Cubic”.

The available options are:

Default (as specified by the server)

Replicate

Bilinear

Cubic

Job Section

Priority

Specifies the priority of the print job.

The available options are:

Default (as specified by the server)

High

Medium

Low

Copies

Specifies the number of copies to be printed for each film in this print job.

Scale Mode

WYSIWYG

Prints the image exactly as it was captured from the viewer. The visible part of the image in the viewer is resized to fit the printed area on the film. If there are areas of the image that were not visible when the image was captured onto the clipboard, those areas will not be printed.

Complete Image

Prints the entire image, disregarding zoom, pan, etc. The entire image is resized to fit the printed area on the film.

True Size

True Size printing is similar to WYSIWYG, except that the printer is told the “true” physical width of the image area being sent to the printer, in millimetres. What this means is that, if you were to measure the image scale (seen on the right and bottom with overlay on) with a ruler, the distance between minor tick marks would be exactly 1cm.

Depending on the size of the printed area on the film, areas that were visible in the viewer may not be printed, and vice versa. For example, if the film size is 8 in x 10 in, the entire image may be printed on a Standard 1x1 format. The same image may be cropped when printed using a Standard 4x4 format. In both cases, the centre of the image as seen in the viewer will still be the centre of the printed image.

Note that, if your printer does not support the true size option, it may not work. Please check the printer’s DICOM Conformance Statement for the "Requested Image Size" and "Requested Decimate Crop Behavior" attributes. Also, note that it is important you be able to determine your printer’s resolution(s) if you are intending to use the “True Size” scale option, otherwise the printed images may be scaled/cropped by the printer, and may contain interpolation and aliasing artifacts.

Colour Mode

Grayscale	Force all images (even colour ones) to print as grayscale.
Colour	If your printer actually supports colour printing, you can select “Colour”, otherwise, just leave it as “Grayscale”.

Other Configuration

Configuration Information

Some printers can accept extra configuration options as plain text. Check the printer's DICOM conformance statement for more detail.

Advanced Printer Configuration

The advanced configuration screen allows you to specify behaviour options for the automatic film size mode, and can be accessed by clicking the Advanced button on the Printer Options dialog.

Automatic Film Size

Film Sizes

Sets the allowed film sizes from which one will be automatically selected.

Unchecking a film size only affects the automatic film size mode, and does not prevent you from manually selecting it when printing.

Horizontal and Vertical Margin

Sets the additional margins, in millimetres, to be accounted for when automatically selecting a film size.

This should be used to fine-tune print outs if the printer has maximum printable dimensions less than the "film" dimensions (such as in some paper printers). These values are effectively subtracted from the film dimensions when trying to fit an image to a film size.