Dynamic “Inline” Images: Context-Sensitive Retrieval and Integration of Images into Web Documents

Abstract

Integrating relevant images into web-based information resources adds value for research and education. This work sought to evaluate the feasibility of using "Web 2.0" technologies to dynamically retrieve and integrate pertinent images into a radiology web site. An online radiology reference of 1,178 textual web documents was selected as the set of target documents. The ARRS GoldMiner™ image search engine, which incorporated 176,386 images from 228 peer-reviewed journals, retrieved images on demand and integrated them into the documents. At least one image was retrieved in real-time for display as an "inline" image gallery for 87% of the web documents. Each thumbnail image was linked to the full-size image at its original web site. Review of 20 randomly selected Collaborative Hypertext of Radiology documents found that 69 of 72 displayed images (96%) were relevant to the target document. Users could click on the "More" link to search the image collection more comprehensively and, from there, link to the full text of the article. A gallery of relevant radiology images can be inserted easily into web pages on any web server. Indexing by concepts and keywords allows contextaware image retrieval, and searching by document title and subject metadata yields excellent results. These techniques allow web developers to incorporate easily a context-sensitive image gallery into their documents.

The Empirical Foundations of Teleradiology and Related Applications: A Review of the Evidence

“…The U.S. study evaluated the use of the Internet to retrieve and integrate pertinent images into a radiology Web site. 71 Thumbnail images were linked to the full-size image at the original site to permit viewing full images. A review of 20 randomly selected hypertext documents (containing 72 images) revealed that 96% of the displayed images were relevant in terms of demonstrating the feasibility of multisite collaboration for image sharing (although more for research and education than clinical interpretation).…”