--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/README	Mon Sep 17 11:34:55 2018 +0200
@@ -0,0 +1,86 @@
+Transfers accelerator plugin for Orthanc
+========================================
+
+
+General information
+-------------------
+
+This repository contains the source code of a plugin for Orthanc that
+speeds up the transfers of DICOM instances over Internet.
+
+The plugin can be used to send local images to remote Orthanc peers,
+or to retrieve images stored on remote Orthanc peers.
+
+Technically, this plugin extends the REST API of Orthanc with
+endpoints that optimize the use of the network bandwidth over the HTTP
+and HTTPS protocols, through the combination of the following
+mechanisms:
+
+* Small DICOM instances are grouped together to form so-called
+  "buckets" of some megabytes in order to reduce the number of HTTP
+  handshakes.
+
+* Large DICOM instances are split as a set of smaller buckets in order
+  to bypass nasty effects of TCP congestion control on low-quality
+  network links.
+
+* Buckets are download concurrently by several threads.
+
+* Buckets can be individually compressed using the gzip algorithm,
+  hereby reducing the network usage. On a typical medical image, this
+  can divide the volume of the transmission by a factor 2 to 3, at the
+  price of a larger CPU usage.
+
+* Sending images to remote Orthanc peers can either be done with HTTP
+  PUT requests (so-called "push mode"), or with HTTP GET requests if
+  the local Orthanc server has a public IP address (so-called "pull
+  mode").
+
+Note that the protocol is built over HTTP/HTTPS (and not directly over
+TCP), making it friendly with network firewalls and Web caches. Also,
+the plugin takes advantage of the jobs engine of Orthanc, so that
+transfers can be easily paused/canceled/resubmitted.
+
+
+Content
+-------
+
+* ./Framework/         - Core C++ framework
+* ./Plugin/            - Source code of the plugin
+* ./Resources/         - 
+* ./UnitTestsSources/  - Unit tests
+
+
+Compilation and usage
+---------------------
+
+The compilation and usage of the plugin is part of the Orthanc Book:
+http://book.orthanc-server.com/plugins/transfers.html
+
+
+Licensing
+---------
+
+The transfers accelerator plugin for Orthanc is licensed under the
+AGPL license.
+
+We also kindly ask scientific works and clinical studies that make
+use of Orthanc to cite Orthanc in their associated publications.
+Similarly, we ask open-source and closed-source products that make
+use of Orthanc to warn us about this use. You can cite our work
+using the following BibTeX entry:
+
+@Article{Jodogne2018,
+  author="Jodogne, S{\'e}bastien",
+  title="The {O}rthanc Ecosystem for Medical Imaging",
+  journal="Journal of Digital Imaging",
+  year="2018",
+  month="Jun",
+  day="01",
+  volume="31",
+  number="3",
+  pages="341--352",
+  issn="1618-727X",
+  doi="10.1007/s10278-018-0082-y",
+  url="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-018-0082-y"
+}