Quickstart (all platforms)

Obtaining binaries

To obtain the Orthanc binaries, you have several possibilities:

Furthermore, if you are running Debian 9 (stretch), Debian 10 (buster), Debian 11 (bullseye), Debian 12 (bookworm), Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (bionic), Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (focal), or Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (jammy) on an AMD64 architecture, Sébastien Jodogne maintains a standalone Debian repository that provides the latest versions of the LSB binaries. For instance, here is how to install the Stone Web viewer on a barebone Docker setup:

# docker run --rm -t -i -p 8042:8042 -p 4242:4242 debian:9

$ apt update
$ DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt install -y software-properties-common wget curl nano gnupg apt-transport-https

$ apt install --upgrade ca-certificates
$ wget -qO - https://debian.orthanc-labs.com/archive.key | apt-key add -
$ apt-add-repository "deb https://debian.orthanc-labs.com/ `grep VERSION_CODENAME /etc/os-release | cut -d'=' -f 2` main"

$ apt clean && apt update
$ apt install orthanc-stone-webviewer
$ /etc/init.d/orthanc start

Note that this standalone Debian repository does not contain the Python plugin and the Java plugin, because these plugins must be dynamically linked against the system-wide version of your Python or Java runtime environment. You should install the orthanc-python or orthanc-java package from your native Debian/Ubuntu distribution if available, or compile the plugin from sources.

Opening Orthanc Explorer

The most straightforward way to use Orthanc consists in opening Orthanc Explorer, the embedded administrative interface of Orthanc, with a Web browser. Once Orthanc is running, open the following URL: http://localhost:8042/app/explorer.html. Please note that:

  • The port number 8042 depends on your configuration.

  • Orthanc Explorer does not work with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Please use Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, or any WebKit-based Web browser.

Note that, if you have installed Orthanc through the Windows Installer or through a Docker image, you very likely have access to the more user friendly Orthanc Explorer 2 interface on http://localhost:8042/ui/app/.

Uploading DICOM files

The Orthanc Explorer interface contains a user-friendly page to upload DICOM files. You can reach the upload page at http://localhost:8042/app/explorer.html#upload. Then, you can drag and drop your DICOM files and click on the Upload button.

You can watch this video tutorial that shows how to upload files to Orthanc through Orthanc Explorer with Chromium.

Important: There is currently a known issue that might prevent Mozilla Firefox to correctly upload all DICOM files if using drag-and-drop.

Uploading through the DICOM protocol

Once Orthanc is up and running, any imaging modality can send instances to Orthanc through the DICOM protocol (with the C-Store command). Check this tutorial to connect your modality to Orthanc.

You can also use the standard command-line tool storescu from the DCMTK software to manually send DICOM images to Orthanc, for instance:

$ storescu -aec ORTHANC localhost 4242 *.dcm

will send all the files with “.dcm” extension to the instance of Orthanc that is running on the localhost, whose application entity title (AET) is ORTHANC, and whose DICOM port is 4242. Obviously, all these parameters depend on your configuration. Please check the FAQ if you encounter any problem.

Next steps

  1. Read the general introduction “Understanding DICOM with Orthanc”.

  2. Have a look at your configuration file.

  3. Drive Orthanc through its REST API.

  4. Automate DICOM tasks with Lua scripts.