Abstract: The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus that streamlines the process of prescribing and acquiring medical imaging experiments and data processing applications. The present application provides a modular intuitive and guided workflow having a graphical user interface that may be tailored and made singular and unique for each individual application. The user interface implements a guided management tool that incorporates the general principle that user activity is more efficient when it begins in the upper left-hand portion of the screen and proceeds horizontally across the screen moving from left-to-right and top-to-bottom. The user interface incorporates a number of tabs wherein each tab corresponds to a major prescription step. The tabs are aligned vertically along the left side of the user interface and are used to modularize the application workflow.

Abstract: A workstation is programmed to operate as an application development system for a medical imaging system. Objects programmed in an object-oriented language are selected from a component library using a visual component assembler which enables them to be dragged from a framework area on a display to a workspace area. Properties of selected components may be edited, and the resulting collection of components may be saved as an application program.

Abstract: The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus that streamlines the process of prescribing and acquiring medical imaging experiments and data processing applications. The present application provides a modular intuitive and guided workflow having a graphical user interface that may be tailored and made singular and unique for each individual application. The user interface implements a guided management tool that incorporates the general principle that user activity is more efficient when it begins in the upper left-hand portion of the screen and proceeds horizontally across the screen moving from left-to-right and top-to-bottom. The user interface incorporates a number of tabs wherein each tab corresponds to a major prescription step. The tabs are aligned vertically along the left side of the user interface and are used to modularize the application workflow.

Abstract: A medical imaging system includes a workstation for receiving operator inputs that prescribe a scan and a plurality of servers which control the acquisition of image data and the reconstruction of prescribed images. The workstation is programmed in Java™ to produce scan descriptions that are downloaded to the servers prior to run time using a serialization mechanism.