DICOM image viewers-白红宇

Last update : May 30, 2016

Referring to my recent post about the , this contribution presents an overview about an important entity in the medical imaging workflow : DICOM image viewers. The list is not exhaustive; I did the following segmentation to present my personal selection of current DICOM image viewers :

Reference viewer

Reference toolkits

Open source viewers

Free proprietary viewers

Licensed commercial viewers

Mobile viewer apps

Other viewers

1. Reference DICOM Viewer

Today one project is generally considered as a reference for DICOM applications : .

OsiriX

The project . The first version was developed by , a radiologist from Geneva, Switzerland, working now at the in Geneva. He received a grant from the to spend one year in , Los Angeles, with Prof. , to explore and learn about medical digital imaging. In October 2004, Antoine Rosset went back to the in Switzerland, to continue his career as a radiologist, where he published an in June 2004 in the . , a mathematician from Geneva, joined the project in March 2005 on a voluntary fellowship of 6 months in UCLA, Los Angeles. In June 2005, OsiriX received two prestigious Apple Design Awards : Best Use of Open Source and Best Mac OS X Scientific Computing Solution. Osman Ratib, Professor of Radiology in UCLA, returned to Geneva at the end of 2005 as the chairman of the Nuclear Medicine service.

In March 2009, Antoine Rosset, Joris Heuberger and Osman Ratib created the to promote open-source in medicine. In February 2010, Antoine Rosset and Joris Heuberger created the company to promote and distribute the OsiriX MD version, certified for medical imaging. This version complies with the European Directive 93/42/EEC concerning medical devices. The is 678 EUR. The can be downloaded from the OsiriX website, the is available at Github.

OsiriX runs on Mac OSX and is released under the . The current version is 7.0 and was released on December 7, 2015. Osirix can also be configured as a PACS server. The power of OsiriX can be extended with .

OsririX Lite

An is available at the AppStore for 49,99 EUR.

2. Reference DICOM toolkits

DICOM toolkits are more than simple viewers; they are a complete set of tools, code samples, examples, documentation, tutorials etc to develop great healthcare applications.

DCMTK

is a collection of libraries and applications implementing large parts the DICOM standard. It includes software for examining, constructing and converting DICOM image files, handling offline media, sending and receiving images over a network connection, as well as demonstrative image storage and worklist servers. DCMTK is is written in a mixture of ANSI C and C++. It comes in complete source code and is made available as open source software.

DCMTK is an ancestor of DICOM applications. In 1993, before the official release of the standard, a DICOM prototype implementation was created by , the and the (Centre Européen d’Imagerie à Usage Médical) research centre in Rennes (France) on behalf of the (CEN/TC251/WG4).

The current version of DCMTK is 3.6.1, released in June 2015. The related is available at the dicom.offis.de website. DICOMscope is the related free DICOM viewer which can display uncompressed, monochrome DICOM images from all modalities and which supports monitor calibration according to DICOM part 14 as well as presentation states. 3.6.0 for Windows, implemented in a mixture of Java and C++, was released in 2003. DICOMscope can’t be installed on newer Windows systems (Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8.1), an error 105 (setup.lid missing) is issued.

DICOMscope version 3.5.1 (archive image)

Some , especially those that are not part of the free toolkit, are covered by a which can be found in the COPYRIGHT file in the corresponding module directory. These tools can be evaluated during a period of four months, any further use of the software requires a , free of charge.

The following sub-packages are part of DCMTK :

config: configuration utilities for dcmtk

dcmdata: a data encoding/decoding library and utility apps

dcmimage: adds support for color images to dcmimgle

dcmimgle: an image processing library and utility apps

dcmjpeg: a compression/decompression library and utility apps

dcmjpls: a compression/decompression library and utility apps

dcmnet: a networking library and utility apps

dcmpstat: a presentation state library and utility apps

dcmrt: a radiation therapy library and utility apps

dcmsign: a digital signature library and utility apps

dcmsr: a structured report library and utility apps

dcmtls: security extensions for the network library

dcmwlm: a modality worklist database server

dcmqrdb: an image database server

oflog: a logging library based on log4cplus

ofstd: a library of general purpose classes

Each sub-package (module) contains a collection of sub-modules (functions). For example, the networking library dcmnet contains the following command line tools :

dcmrecv: Simple DICOM storage SCP (receiver)

dcmsend: Simple DICOM storage SCU (sender)

echoscu: DICOM verification (C-ECHO) SCU

findscu: DICOM query (C-FIND) SCU

getscu: DICOM retrieve (C-GET) SCU

movescu: DICOM retrieve (C-MOVE) SCU

storescp: DICOM storage (C-STORE) SCP

storescu: DICOM storage (C-STORE) SCU

termscu: DICOM termination SCU

dcm4che

is a collection of open source applications and utilities for the healthcare enterprise developed in the Java programming language. is a DICOM Clinical Data Manager system.

dcm4che2 contains a number of useful sample applications that may be used in conjunction with dcm4chee, with another archive application, or to operate on DICOM objects in a standalone fashion. A list of the dcm4che2 utilities is shown hereafter :

dcm2txt- Convert a DICOM object to text

dcm2xml- Convert a DICOM object to XML

dcmdir- Manipulate a DICOM dir

dcmecho – Initiate a C-ECHO command as an SCU

cmgpwl – Query a General Purpose Worklist SCP

dcmmwl – Query a Modality Worklist SCP

dcmof – Simulate an Order Filler application

dcmqr – Perform C-FIND, C-GET and C-MOVE operations as an SCU

dcmrcv – DICOM receiver (C-STORE SCP)

dcmsnd – Perform C-STORE operations as an SCU

dcmups – Unified Worklist and Procedure Step SCU

dcmwado – Initiate DICOM WADO requests

jpg2dcm – Convert a JPEG image to DICOM

logger – Log files to a Syslog destination

mkelmdic – Create the serialized dcm4che2 DICOM Dictionary

mkuiddic – Create the dcm4che2 UID dictionary

mkvrmap – Create the dcm4che2 VR Mappings

pdf2dcm – Convert a PDF document to DICOM

rgb2ybr – Convert pixel data from YBR to RGB format

txt2dcmsr – Convert text to a DICOM Structured Report

xml2dcm – Convert XML to DICOM

The dcm4che history states that back around the year 2000, wrote the popular JDicom utility suite using commercial Java DICOM Toolkit (JDT). After this experience, he decided to develop his own toolkit and to name it after .

dcm4che and dcm4chee are licensed under an similar to Mozilla.

The dcm4che DICOM viewer is called . The current version is 2.0.4, released on June 23, 2015.

WEASIS version 2.0.4

Grassroots DICOM

is a C++ library for DICOM medical files. It is accessible from Python, C#, Java and PHP. It supports RAW, JPEG, JPEG 2000, JPEG-LS, RLE and deflated transfer syntax. It comes with a super fast scanner implementation to quickly scan hundreds of DICOM files. It supports SCU network operations (C-ECHO, C-FIND, C-STORE, C-MOVE).

The current version is, released on January 27, 2016. The is available at Github. A is available at Sourceforge, a reference to GDCM is available at . The project is developed by () from Lyon, France.

3. Open Source DICOM Viewers

Most open source DICOM viewer projects are web viewers based on HTML5, CCS3 and Javascript. The big advantage of these viewers is the cross-platform compatibility; they can be used with any modern browser.

DICOM web viewers are presented in a separate contribution. Among them are the following open source projects :

Cornerstone

Papaya

jsDICOM

webDICOM

dcmjs

There are also some non web open source DICOM viewers :

3DSlicer

3DimViewer

3DSlicer

is a free and open source software package for image analysis and scientific visualization. It’s more than a simple DICOM viewer. This outstanding project started as a masters thesis project between the Surgical Planning Laboratory at the and the in 1998.

is written in C++, Python, Java and Qt and can be compiled for use on multiple computing platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. 3D Slicer needs a powerful computer to run. The current version is 4.5.0-1, released on November 11, 2015. It’s distributed under a BSD style, free, open source license. More than 50 plug-ins and packages of plug-ins are available.

3D Slicer

The main developers are now , Slicer’s principal architect and , Principal Investigator for many Slicer-related projects. The are available at the 3D slicer.org website.

3DimViewer

3DimViewer is a lightweight 3D viewer of medical DICOM datasets distributed as open source software. The viewer is multiplatform software written in C++ that runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX systems.

3DimViewer is developed by , a company specializing in applications of modern computer graphics in medicine and developing innovative solutions. Founded since 2008, the company focuses on medical image processing, 3D graphics, geometry processing and volumetric data visualization. The company office is located in Brno, Czech Republic, next to many high tech companies inheriting the spirit of .

3DimViewer version 2.2

The current version of 3DimViewer is 2.2, released on February 6, 2015. Several plugins are available to extend the functions. Binaries are available for download on the , is available at BitBucket.

GDCMviewer

is the simple tool that show how to use It is basically only just a wrapper around GDCM. The tool is meant for testing integration of in .

4. Free Proprietary DICOM Viewers

Most free proprietary DICOM viewers are copyrighted by their owner and are available for use, as is, free of charge, for educational and scientific, non-commercial purposes. Some of them are included on DICOM CDs provided by the hospitals to the patients.

Mango

(short for Multi-image Analysis GUI) is a viewer for medical research images, developed by Jack L. Lancaster, Ph.D. and Michael J. Martinez at the University of Texas.

There are several versions of Manga available :

, a Java application running on Windows Mac OSX and Linux

, running on iPads and available at the

, running as a Java applet

, running as HTML5 application in all browsers

The software and data derived from Mango software may be used only for research and may not be used for clinical purposes. If Mango software or data derived from Mango software is used in scientific publications, the must be cited as a reference.

Mango DICOM viewer

Orpalis

The is a free tool for medical staff to view DICOM files. The current version 1.0.1, released on June 20, 2014, should run on any 32- or 64-bit Windows System, but I experienced serious problems on my Windows 8.1 system (thumbnails are not displayed, frequent viewer crashes, …). The ORPALIS DICOM Viewer is based on the .

Orpalis DICOM viewer

MicroDICOM

is an application for primary processing and preservation of medical images in DICOM format, with an intuitive user interface and being free for use and accessible to everyone. MicroDicom runs on Windows, the is 0.9.1, released on June 2, 2015.

MicroDicom viewer

EMV Medical Viewer

The EMV viewer is developed by Escape, which was founded in 1991 and is based in downtown Thessaloniki, Greece. was released on October 10, 2014, was released on July 21, 2015.

You can download and evaluate the software for free, but you need a for using it in a commercial environment. The is 245 EUR, for use on up to three computers.

5. Licensed commercial DICOM viewers

Photoshop

Since version 10 (CS3) launched in April 2007, provides a comprehensive image measurement and analysis tools with .

Photoshop CS3 with DICOM support

DICOMIZER

is a Point-Of-Care Imaging and Reporting tool provided by in Tel-Aviv, Israel. The company is specialized in developing Medical Device, Healthcare IT, DICOM and and provides medical imaging consultation, development services and professional courses. The company was founded in 2002 (formerly RZ Software Services) by , a medical imaging and connectivity expert, who is acting as its CEO. Roni Zaharia is the author of the blog , providing useful news about medical images and an outstanding . Dicomizer works on Windows, the current version is 5.0. The price of a licence is $470 USD, a free evaluation version is available. The annual update costs are $120 USD. Dicomizer can also be used as an DICOM image generator.

DICOMIZER version 4.1

H.R.Z Software Services LTD provides also the following medical toolkits :

Fast Strike DICOM Toolkit

: extensible DICOM Server (PACS) for OEM

: WYSIWYG HL7 Integration Engine for MS SQL Server

MedImaView – PowerDicom

is a multi-modality DICOM viewer with an intuitive Windows Graphical User Interface. It’s part of Technologies, an All-in-One application for handling DICOM files developed by, an company. Licenses for PowerDicom (version 4.8.6 released on May 4, 2015) are available in a price-range from 39 EUR to 310 EUR. PowerDicom allows also the generation of DICOM images. A free can be downloaded from the DICOM Solutions website. MedImaView (version 1.8) is free for personal use and students.

MedimaView DICOM viewer

DICOM PowerTools

are developed by who provides imaging workflow solutions and DICOM software products to the medical imaging industry. PowerTools are a suite designed for the testing, troubleshooting, or debugging of applications that use DICOM communications. PowerTools also provides for the viewing, repair, or creation of DICOM data sets and their contents.

The current version is 1.0.34, released on November 24, 2015.

PowerTools File Editor

RadiAnt

is a DICOM viewer for medical images designed with an intuitive interface and unrivaled performance. It runs on Windows, the latest version is 2.2.8.10726, released on December 11, 2015. The prices for a license range from 72 EUR to 400 EUR. A free evaluation version is available. RadiAnt is not certified as a medical product and is not intended for diagnostic purposes. RadiAnt is developed by , a small, privately funded company that was first formed by Maciej Frankiewicz in 2011 in Poznan, Poland.

RadiAnt DICOM viewer

CODONICS Clarity Viewer

Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, develops, designs, sells and supports leading-edge medical imaging and information management devices used in diagnostic imaging.

features simple image navigation and selection, an intuitive user interface, quick viewer launch and rapid image loading. The is extremely useful for viewing diagnostic imaging results. It is a comprehensive PET/CT viewer that is simple to use for single or comparison study review. All basic features of the Codonics Clarity Viewer are also included.

Codonics Clarity 3D/Fusion viewer

MatLab Dicom Toolbox

The includes import, export and conversion functions for scientific file formats, amomg them . The available functions are dicomanon, dicomdict, dicomdisp, dicominfo, dicomlookup, dicomread, dicomuid, dicomwrite. A tutorial shows how to .

6. Mobile DICOM viewer apps

The are presented in a separate contribution.

7. Other DICOM viewers

The following list provides links to additional DICOM viewers developed by the industry’s leading medical imaging equipment suppliers and by independant developers :

Siemens , , ,

: multi-modality

: IMPAX EE, Musica

: eFilm DICOM Viewer

: Scan+

(acquired ClearCanvas)

: , ,

DICOM image viewers