ImageBox3: No-Server Tile Serving to Traverse Whole Slide Images on the Web

TL;DR

ImageBox3 enables web-based, serverless traversal of large whole slide images directly in the browser, enhancing accessibility and collaboration without requiring local copies or extensive infrastructure.

Contribution

It introduces a client-side tiling mechanism that allows zero-footprint access to remote WSI data using standard web protocols, eliminating the need for local storage or specialized platforms.

Findings

Enables in-browser traversal of large WSIs without local copies

Operates with standard HTTP range requests in cloud and web servers

Facilitates democratized access and collaboration in digital pathology

Abstract

Whole slide imaging (WSI) has become the primary modality for digital pathology data. However, due to the size and high-resolution nature of these images, they are generally only accessed in smaller sections or tiles via specialized platforms, most of which require extensive setup and/or costly infrastructure. These platforms typically also need a copy of the images to be locally available to them, potentially causing issues with data governance and provenance. To address these concerns, we developed ImageBox3, an in-browser tiling mechanism to enable zero-footprint traversal of remote WSI data. All computation is performed client-side without compromising user governance, operating public and private images alike as long as the storage service supports HTTP range requests (standard in Cloud storage and most web servers). ImageBox3 thus removes significant hurdles to WSI operation and effective collaboration, allowing for the sort of democratized analytical tools needed to establish participative, FAIR digital pathology data commons. Availability: code - https://github.com/episphere/imagebox3; fig1 (live) - https://episphere.github.io/imagebox3/demo/scriptTag ; fig2 (live) - https://episphere.github.io/imagebox3/demo/serviceWorker ; fig 3 (live) - https://observablehq.com/@prafulb/imagebox3-in-observable .