Thumbnail Grouping

The thumbnail panel supports grouping of thumbnails.  This feature allows the viewer to consolidate thumbnails into groups for better use of  monitor space.  The feature is enabled by default.  However, it can be disabled via a master control (see below).

Grouped

Ungrouped

Master Control

This feature is enabled by default.  Disable the feature completely from Tools/Options/Hanging protocols/General settings/Thumbnail grouping

Appearance

Grouped thumbnails are identifiable by a unique icon

NOTE: Studies with thumbnails that would be grouped (grouping rule exists) but do not have more than one groupable thumbnail are displayed as a normal non grouped thumbnail.

Interacting with Thumbnail Groups

Expand and Collapse Groups

Left click on a thumbnail group to expand it.

Click once more on the thumbnail group or anywhere else in the viewer to collapse the group.

After expanding a group, you may hover over other groups to expand them without having to click again.

Drag and Drop

Thumbnail groups may be dragged into image frames while expanded or collapsed.  

Dragging and dropping a collapsed group will load the entire content of the grouping into the image frame.

To load a single thumbnail within a group, you must first expand the group then drag and drop the individual thumbnail into an image frame.

Double Click to Load

To insert a group of thumbnails into the next available image frame, double left click on the grouped thumbnail.

To insert a single thumbnail into the next available image frame, expand a thumbnail group then double left click on the individual thumbnail.

Managing Groups

Thumbnail groupings are managed by rules.  Each grouping has its own rule.  Each rule has its own configuration and properties.

Default Rules

Default grouping rules can be found and managed in Tools/Options/Hanging protocols/Thumbnail Grouping Defaults

NOTE: The desktop viewer provides factory default rules for most known mammography views.  Default grouping rules for other modalities can be added by the user.

Filtering Rules

The list of rules can be filtered by using the filter section.

Managing Rules

 Rule Editor

The viewer utilizes a rules engine to determine which thumbnails should be grouped.  An editor interface is provided to configure grouping rules and other settings.

EXAMPLE: Below is a factory default grouping rule for a RCC mammography view.  Notice the rule uses augmented arguments for laterality (c@right) and view position (c@cc).  Using augmented arguments like this allows the rule to have a higher rate of success by not solely depending on a specific series description as vendors differentiate from one another.  If series description was included the rule would look like this: "rcc c@right c@cc"

The result of this grouping rule can be seen below.  Notice the series descriptions of the two series are different.  However, because the rule is using the more consistent laterality and view position augmentation argument, the viewer successfully groups the two RCC series.

NOTE: Open the View/DICOM Info (F7) panel to look up laterality and view position values before creating rules.

Overriding Modality Default Groups

Rules defined in Options/Hanging protocol/Thumbnail Default Grouping can be overridden with hanging protocols.  When any change is made to a thumbnail group, the change can be saved by updating the current hanging protocol applied.

Thumbnail grouping context menu/options

Groupings can be configured and edited within the thumbnail panel by accessing the panel's context menu.  There are two versions of context menus, one for grouped thumbnails and the other for ungrouped thumbnails.  

To access the context menu navigate to Layout/Layout edit mode or click the icon on the Hanging protocol toolbar then press the right mouse button on a thumbnail.

Grouped thumbnail context menu:

Ungrouped thumbnail context menu: