Mri file format?

[MelissP]

Speaking with my gp today, they said that if a report can be obtained
it would only be written; that there wouldn't be any interesting images
to look at, and I'll just have to take the radiologist's word on things.
But given my track record with doctors lately, that leaves me wondering.

So they say the Mri is stored on cd-rom. And maybe I can persuade them
to let me have a copy. But what is the file format for the images they
took? I'd love to send it out by email to friends and experts everywhere,
and it would make a neat wallpaper for my x-windows desktop :-)

Any ideas? - Melissa

[Peter]

Hi Melissa,

I would get the cdrom, and then worry about the file format. With all of the computer talent associated with Bodies Like Ours, I am pretty sure that someone will be able to help you view the files. Usually image formats are associated with file name extensions, so if the file is named, lets say "Melissa.jpg", then it is a jpg file format. Also, there are digital graphic artists associated with this forum who know far more about the subject than I do. There is often software available that can convert one file format to another file format. As you can see below, it also really helps to know the make and model of the MRI machine used to do your MRI.

The following is from the Mayo Clinic Website and might be helpful:


"Imaging Modalities

AVW can be used effectively for almost any conceivable image visualization and/or analysis task, independent of the source of the image data. It is not restricted to biomedical images, having been successfully used for image processing and analysis tasks in non-biomedical fields such as geology, archeology, meteorology and photography, to name a few. However, it has been and is most commonly used in and provides procedural support for the following biomedical imaging modalities:

X-ray Computed Tomography (CT)
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT, ECT)
Ultrasound Imaging
Biomagnetic Imaging
Radiographic Imaging
Auto-radiographic Imaging
2-D and 3-D Microscopy Imaging (Light, Electron, Confocal, Atomic Force) "

Other common MRI formats include:

Scanner/PACS Formats:

Picker SPECT image formats.
GE MR SIGNA 3 and SIGNA 5 MRI/CT Formats.
GE SIGNA Horizon LX MRI Image Format.
Siemens Magnatom Vision MRI Image Format
DICOM 3.0 Image Data.
CTI (old style) format.
CTI ECAT 7 (new style) format.
SMIS MRI data format
ASI/Concorde MicroPET image file format

Peter

[Betsy]

http://www.ami.tkk.fi/instructions/AW2CD_DICOM.html

Ahhh...wrote a post indicating some thing different and deleted in favor of that above link.

[Betsy]

edit: never mind

[Betsy]

However, I also found this which may or may be relevant to your situation: http://www.parksidemri.com/new.html

and this link which sounds more promising: http://www.montefiore.org/pressreleases/2002/12/diagnoses_from_afar/

I would definitely enquire with the film department or whatever they call it and ask if it is viewable on your home machine. Depending on the cost, I would probably get one regardless of what their answer is as I suspect it will be easy, like jpg, gif, bmp, or maybe flash.

[Sofie]

So they say the Mri is stored on cd-rom. And maybe I can persuade them to let me have a copy. But what is the file format for the images they took? I'd love to send it out by email to friends and experts everywhere, and it would make a neat wallpaper for my x-windows desktop :-)

If they say no to give you a copy, you could still ask for a print.
It would still be a good idea to get a copy of the written report. If they say they didn't find anything and you get a different diagnosis later, you could at least prove that they were lying to you.

There shouldn't be any problems mounting the CDR on your PC, whatever the fileformat.

Sof

[MelissP]

Thanks to all for the advice. Hopefully I'll be able to do that.
Even better if I do but didn't need to. - Melissa

[MelissP]

Hi All,

I've got the cd with my mri, It's got a win32 image viewer that only
partially works on the win machines I've got access to. I can see the
thumbnails.

The cd mostly has a lot of .dcm files, which I don't know how to convert
into anything useful. It's been said that there are lots of people here
who'd know what to do, so ... help (please?) :wave1:

Thanks,
Melissa

[Morgan]

This site gives links to PC software that should do the job.

Click the format to convert FROM (.dcm) and TO (.jpg?), and it comes up with a couple of software applications. Both applications look like shareware, with free trial periods, although the first one adds a watermark to the images which you don't want...
http://www.convert-files.com/cgi-bin/formatsearch.cgi

I'm a Mac user, so I'm not sure how the applications work...

all the best

Morgan

[MelissP]

This site gives links to PC software that should do the job.

Click the format to convert FROM (.dcm) and TO (.jpg?), and it comes up with a couple of software applications. Both applications look like shareware, with free trial periods, although the first one adds a watermark to the images which you don't want...
http://www.convert-files.com/cgi-bin/formatsearch.cgi

I'm a Mac user, so I'm not sure how the applications work...

all the best

Morgan

Thanks. though all the list gave me was windows software, so I'm
as cutout as you are. - Mel

[Morgan]

I'm not sure I understand - you said you have access only to win machines?

[MelissP]

I'm not sure I understand - you said you have access only to win machines?

Not exactly. I have access to a win nt machine, but it wasn't working
working right anyways. I just have one pc, that's mostly running unix.
I do have a 2'nd harddrive that I can boot dos+win 3.1 from. That's
the limits of my computing power.
- Mel

[Morgan]

I got this with a quick Google search on these terms:.dcm format linux converter

http://linux.bankhacker.com/en/software/ImageMagick/

The URL doesn't give me much confidence, but it links to SourceForge, a reliable open source site.

[Betsy]

I was about to post this in a PM to Ml but since others are reading this thread and it's relevant figured I would do it here. She mentioned imagemagick for her unix machine and the issues with installing it because it's a pretty complex module.

I suggest taking a look at this one: http://homepage.mac.com/rossetantoine/osirix/Index2.html

What linux version/issue are you running?

Here is another option I located http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/cr1/dicomcom.html

and finally, we have image::magick installed on our server and I'm wondering if I load in some images for you (how big are they?) you would be able to view them.

Betsy

[Betsy]

I just ran the question by our host and I'm sure they will respond shortly.

Betsy

Did you try this version of imagemagick? http://sourceforge.net/projects/imagemagick

[Sofie]

It's called DICOM-Format and there is a picture-viewer/converter called XNView that can read and convert the images. It's available precompiled for different platforms.