Radiology viewing solutions increasingly are making use of VDI and streaming technology. This has important advantages such as increased security, smaller size and lower cost client devices, and reduced IT and maintenance costs.

However, image quality of streaming solutions strongly depends on network characteristics. Network bandwidth, latency and packet loss are typically fluctuating over time and can result into unpredictable image quality. And even in case of perfectly stable network performance, image quality will depend on the image contents (modality) that is being viewed. Settings of the VDI system also strongly influence image quality that can be achieved.

Purely measuring and controlling network characteristics, or purely relying on visual or automated inspection of test patterns cannot guarantee overall sufficient image quality. Instead different modalities require different minimum requirements. And there is a need to also verify correct settings of the VDI system itself.

An ideal quality assurance solution for radiology viewing solutions that are based on streaming technology, will not only verify correct system settings but will also continuously monitor network characteristics (bandwidth, latency, …) as well as image quality characteristics (resolution, framerate, image artifacts) and determine in real-time whether current performance is sufficient to guarantee diagnostic level image quality for the specific image modality that is being viewed.

Future work is needed to identify the exact minimum performance requirements that are acceptable for individual image modalities.