FUNCTIONALITY OF GRAY-SCALE DISPLAY WORKSTATION HARDWARE AND SOFTWAREIN CLINICAL RADIOLOGY

This article examines the functional factors crucial for the successfu l conversion from film-based radiography to radiologic gray-scale disp lay systems, including hardware architecture and software requirements , radiologic workstation operations, and a multilayered intelligent us er interface. Radiologic workstation operations are logically decompos ed into case preparation, case selection, case presentation, case inte rpretation, and documentation and presentation of the diagnosis. A mul tilayered software architecture for an adaptive, intelligent user inte rface is proposed: a hardware interface layer, an object-oriented laye r, and a knowledge-based layer. The knowledge-based layer is composed of three elements: image presentation based on context-dependent model s of diagnostic requirements, knowledge-based expert systems for assis tance in diagnostic decision making, and computer-assisted diagnosis t o alert the radiologist to potential lesions or abnormalities.