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

Background: 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. Results: 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). Conclusion: 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 .