Can my Laptop act as a Pacs just to test it??

[ingvey]

We have recently installed a Philips PACS system where I work and it frequently looses communication from our imaging computer to the Pacs system. Other then Pinging the connection could I hook my laptop up at the end of the Cat-5 cable from our imaging computer and simulate our pacs connection so I could know when its a PACS problem or a Computer imaging problem Thanks in advance.

[Marco Eichelberg]

In principle, yes, but this may require modifications to the system configuration at the modality or PACS system, or both, depending on what exactly you want to test.

[ingvey]

What I would like to test is what is known as our DSI Digital Subtraction Imaging computer. It sends Dicom to our PACS system. I would lik eto unplug the Cat5 cable that goes to PACS and plug it into my laptop (running some type of simulator) to make sure I am outputting images. The finger pointing is starting when the Pacs folks say all is well on their ens and we say all is well on ours. It always seems to be their end as we have never replaced PCBS or programs to resolve the (no send) issues . Thanks again Mike

[Marco Eichelberg]

If it's a CAT5 cable then it probably does not go to the PACS, but to a network switch or hub. In principle what you want is possible if you can unhook the imaging modality from the network. Create a direct connection to your laptop (will need a cross-link cable), configure your laptop to use the IP address that would otherwise be used by the PACS server, run the StoreSCP tool on the port number under which the PACS is configured to receive incoming images, and try to export images from the modality. Some command line options might be needed in StoreSCP to get things to work (try --prefer-lossless) if it does not work in the first run. Before you try any DICOM connection, make sure that basic TCP/IP stuff works - you should be able to ping the modality from the laptop and vice versa.