GE medical systems dicom files: how to read and convert them

perry jones

unread,

Dec 18, 2009, 5:27:44 AM12/18/09

to

Hello,

I want to view and if possible convert some dicom images which i
received on a cd from a radiologist. The cd is supposed to work in a
plug-and-play fashion, but it doesn't work.

When using a hex editor to view the image files, the first bytes show a
string "GE Medical Systems / DICOM Part 10 file". Each image is located
in a subdirectory within the DICOMDAT directory. There is as well a
DICOMDIR file located in the root directory. The first bytes within the
dicomdir file show a string "GE Medical Systems / DICOM Part 10 file /
CENTRICITY 001471".

Since the shipped viewer does not work, I tried a number of other
programmes to access the files, without any success. The image files and
the dicomdir filed are always reported as invalid. In the dicomdir file
there are strings probably containing the radiologists' software:
Applicare/Radworks.

Is there a way to view the files without the buggy GE CENTRICITY viewer?

Thanks for any hints,
perry

Mathieu Malaterre

unread,

Dec 18, 2009, 9:15:37 AM12/18/09

to

You could use the command line tools from GDCM to check if those files
are actually DICOM files. The command line is gdcminfo:

http://gdcm.sourceforge.net/html/gdcminfo.html

If they are, you could use something like IrfanView + DICOM plugin to
view them (or any other viewer).

HTH
Ref:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/gdcm/index.php?title=GDCM_Release_2.0#GDCM_2.0.14

Alvin

unread,

Dec 19, 2009, 7:11:40 AM12/19/09

to

Dear Perry,

If you are still facing the problem, please share one of the
problematic image.

Regards
Alvin

perry jones

unread,

Dec 19, 2009, 9:49:15 AM12/19/09

to

Dear Alvin,

I just tested the cd on a different computer and luckily there it
worked. It seems that the images on the cd are generated with some
non-standard compression technique. The viewer shipped with the cd
allows to export the image as dicom, jpg, tiff and bmp. When exporting
to dicom, the resulting file is much larger than the corresponding input
file. This output file seems to be standard, I was able to view it with
xnview.

Thank you and regards
Perry

Alvin schrieb:

softgal...@gmail.com

unread,

Jul 21, 2012, 3:22:44 PM7/21/12

to

On Saturday, December 19, 2009 9:49:15 AM UTC-5, perry jones wrote:
> Dear Alvin,
>
> I just tested the cd on a different computer and luckily there it
> worked. It seems that the images on the cd are generated with some
> non-standard compression technique. The viewer shipped with the cd
> allows to export the image as dicom, jpg, tiff and bmp. When exporting
> to dicom, the resulting file is much larger than the corresponding input
> file. This output file seems to be standard, I was able to view it with
> xnview.
>
> Thank you and regards
> Perry
>
> Alvin schrieb:

> > Dear Perry,
> >
> > If you are still facing the problem, please share one of the
> > problematic image.
> >
> > Regards
> > Alvin

I had similar situation and was able to successfully use "xnview" to open GE DICOM files, I tried Irfanview first after installing required plug-ins, but it didn't work, it may require some other DLL's, it wasn't simple comparing with xnview.

Raza.