DICOM_Watch

DICOM_Watch is designed to work in conjunction with DICOMatic. DICOM_Watch will periodically search a chosen directory and convert the images it finds to DICOM images.

Overview

(For Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP and Vista)

DICOM_Watch Once started, DICOM_Watch will periodically scan a "Watched" directory. Any image files found in that directory (or any of its sub-directories) will be sent to the conversion module of DICOMatic. The resulting DICOM images will be either placed in a "Done" directory with an optional study/series hierarchy, sent to a DICOM printer or pushed to a number of PACS (up to 4 targets).

Hook up your old scanner to your PACS

DICOM_Watch is ideal to hook up an older non-DICOM scanner directly to your PACS. Almost all old scanners are based on workstations that have an Ethernet connection. Just hook up this connection to your PC. If the FTP Push option is available on your scanner, use it to push the images to the PC. If not, you can use one of the existing disk sharing tools (such as NFS, Samba, NetDrive or WebDrive) to make the scanner's disk visible from the PC.

DICOM_Watch will take it from there. It will grab the images as soon as they are available, convert to DICOM (using DICOMatic's conversion modules) and push the DICOM images to your PACS.

Once this setup is in place, it is completely automatic. Your scanner is now DICOM compatible! You do not need the operator to do anything. All the images that are captured by your scanner are pushed to your PACS within a few seconds of their acquisition.

Convert a CD or even a complete database

You can also use DICOM_Watch to convert the entire content of a CD or even a complete database of images. You can use DICOM_Watch options to rename all the images with a more significant name, and create a hierarchy of directories based on patient, study and series information.

Configuration

The DICOM_Watch parameters can be configured either from the graphic interface or with the "DICOM_Watch.ini" file.

The configurable parameters are:

• The location of the "Watched" and "Done" directories.
• An optional "Kept" directory to keep a copy of the original image.
• An optional "Fail" directory to keep a copy of non compatible images.
• The sleep period between successive scans of the "Watched" directory.
• A number of conditions used to make sure the image to be converted is completely transfered.
• The structure of the "Done" directory for the converted images. With a choice of:
  • all the images together,
  • one sub-directory per study with the sub-directory's name being either the patient name, the patient ID or the study ID,
  • one sub-directory per study and a further sub-directory per series.
• The name of the converted image. With a choice between:
  • the original image name with and ".dcm" extension
  • a name composed of the study/series/acquisition/image information.
• An optional DICOM printer where the converted images can be printed
• Up to 4 DICOM servers where the converted images can be pushed