Mercury Computer Systems announced the Visage CS Thin Client/Server at the 91st Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). The company also announced installations at the Baltimore VA Medical Center, affiliated with the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and another internationally recognized medical research facility, where Visage CS PACS systems are enabling progressive research on the integration of 3D into PACS (picture archiving and communications system) solutions. Visage CS Thin Client/Server provides full volume rendering and 3D workstation capabilities on thin clients anywhere in the hospital enterprise, enabling standard PCs and laptops to act as fully functional medical workstations. All medical image data processing and visualization is performed on a central server, and the resulting screen content is streamed to the thin client via a standard network connection. Visage CS allows multiple clients throughout the enterprise to concurrently access and visualize multiple independent data sets. The data explosion in medical imaging, now hastened by the deployment of multi-slice CT (computed tomography), functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), and PET/CT scanners, has created the need to provide ubiquitous, advanced 3D visualization with full functionality to existing infrastructure computers within the enterprise. "The biggest barrier to the transition to 3D imaging has been the lack of integration of this capability into PACS workstations," said Eliot Siegel, M.D., Professor and Vice Chairman of Information Systems, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Chief of Radiology, VA Maryland Healthcare System. "In the next few years, advanced 3D visualization, image processing, and analysis will be performed centrally, with resources shared across the network." The Visage CS Thin Client/Server architecture provides all the capabilities of a specialized medical workstation anywhere in the enterprise. The processing and visualization can be shared effectively by many standard PCs or laptops that are limited in terms of memory, processing power, or graphics acceleration. Thin clients can be quickly and easily integrated into the customer's system framework, increasing the value of their systems and their competitiveness. "Visage CS is the only industry-standard, multi-GPU-based, multi-client, fully scalable client/server technology on the market today," said Marcelo Lima, Vice President of Commercial Imaging and Visualization, Mercury Computer Systems. "Our OEM customers can quickly and cost-effectively integrate and deploy this capability into their modality or PACS systems today, providing instant 3D functionality across the enterprise as well as benefit from the future value a standards-based solution inexorably provides over time." Mercury is 3D to the Core Today's high-resolution imaging scanners are creating an explosion of data. Mercury has architected its entire product line for medical OEMs to be 3D to the Core, a revolutionary new platform designed to empower the transformation of the diagnostic workflow to fully integrated, seamless 3D visualization. Mercury will hold demonstrations of its Visage CS Thin Client Server technology and other 3D to the Core imaging and visualization software and systems solutions, including the Visage WS Workstation, Visage VR Volume Rendering, Visage RT Image Reconstruction and Visage PACS, at RSNA November 27 through December 1. Visit Mercury in the South Building, Hall A, Section 3, Booth #1912 at RSNA, or online at its Web site for more information on Mercury's 3D to the Core imaging solutions.