# Can we view Data in 3D slicer from GCS (Google Cloud Storage) Bucket? Is there any workaround that can be followed in order to achieve this?

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/can-we-view-data-in-3d-slicer-from-gcs-google-cloud-storage-bucket-is-there-any-workaround-that-can-be-followed-in-order-to-achieve-this/17849>\
**Category:** Support\
**Tags:** web\
**Created:** [May 28, 2021, 8:46pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/can-we-view-data-in-3d-slicer-from-gcs-google-cloud-storage-bucket-is-there-any-workaround-that-can-be-followed-in-order-to-achieve-this/17849 "2021-05-28T20:46:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Coder](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/coder/32/11096_2.png) [@Coder](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/Coder)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 8:46pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/can-we-view-data-in-3d-slicer-from-gcs-google-cloud-storage-bucket-is-there-any-workaround-that-can-be-followed-in-order-to-achieve-this/17849/1 "2021-05-28T20:46:30Z")

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Operating system: Using DockerSlicer Image to host 3d slicer  
Slicer version: 4.10

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**Author:** ![Coder](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/coder/32/11096_2.png) [@Coder](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/Coder)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2021, 5:06pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/can-we-view-data-in-3d-slicer-from-gcs-google-cloud-storage-bucket-is-there-any-workaround-that-can-be-followed-in-order-to-achieve-this/17849/2 "2021-06-04T17:06:48Z")

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Hi @lassoan,  
Is there any plugin or extension which can connect slicer to GCS bucket?

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**Author:** ![lassoan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lassoan/32/13_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2021, 8:58pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/can-we-view-data-in-3d-slicer-from-gcs-google-cloud-storage-bucket-is-there-any-workaround-that-can-be-followed-in-order-to-achieve-this/17849/3 "2021-06-04T20:58:12Z")

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It should be no problem.

For example, I know that it works with the DICOMwebBrowser extension (you can browse a DICOMweb database, filter, download, locally cache, and display any DICOM data set).

For generic file access, you can use standard Python packages. Maybe @pieper can give advice about authentication and other best practices in Slicer’s Python environment.

What is your end goal?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Coder](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/coder/32/11096_2.png) [@Coder](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/Coder)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2021, 9:04pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/can-we-view-data-in-3d-slicer-from-gcs-google-cloud-storage-bucket-is-there-any-workaround-that-can-be-followed-in-order-to-achieve-this/17849/4 "2021-06-04T21:04:18Z")

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Assuming the data user wants to view is on cloud GCS(Google storage bucket) and not locally so want to directly connect this bucket to slicer.

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**Author:** ![lassoan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lassoan/32/13_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 12:23am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/can-we-view-data-in-3d-slicer-from-gcs-google-cloud-storage-bucket-is-there-any-workaround-that-can-be-followed-in-order-to-achieve-this/17849/5 "2021-06-05T00:23:51Z")

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What kind of data sets do you need to access and how do you find what data set you want to load? If you use DICOM then a good option is to set up [DICOMweb access](https://cloud.google.com/healthcare/docs/how-tos/dicomweb) because then you can access the data using a standard interface from a wide variety of applications (e.g., 3D Slicer, web viewers such as OHIF).

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**Author:** ![pieper](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/pieper/32/8_2.png) [@pieper](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/pieper)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2021, 8:39pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/can-we-view-data-in-3d-slicer-from-gcs-google-cloud-storage-bucket-is-there-any-workaround-that-can-be-followed-in-order-to-achieve-this/17849/6 "2021-06-07T20:39:42Z")

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If you can assume the user installs the [Google Cloud SDK](https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install) utilities (gcloud and gsutil) then you can use them from Slicer like [we do here](https://github.com/lassoan/SlicerDICOMwebBrowser/blob/main/DICOMwebBrowser/DICOMwebBrowser.py#L1083-L1102). Depending on what you want to do it might be more efficient to use [the python libraries](https://cloud.google.com/python/docs/reference) to access APIs directly.