Frequently Ask Questions (FAQ)

1. What platforms (operating systems) does your software run on?
   

   All our software run on PC running Windows, including Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP and Vista.
   
   The software would probably run on Linux or Unix system if they have a Windows binary emulator installed but we have not tested them for compatibility.
   

2. What are the system requirements?
   

   • Operating System: Windows (95, 98, NT, 2000, XP or Vista)
     
   • USB port: we need one to plug the dongle that contains the license
     

3. Can I have a temporary license to evaluate your software?
   

   You do not need any license to evaluate the software!
   Just download the software from our web site. Without licenses, the software has some limitations: it will add a watermark to the image, remove the patient name and ID and Study number; but that should not prevent you from testing the functionality with your system.
   
   If you encounter images that we can not convert, please contact us, we may be able to add the support of your images to our product.

4. What are the prices and do you have an educational discount available?
   

   You can find the pricing of DICOMatic and its modules and the information on how to order a license, on this "how to buy a license" page.

   There is a no educational discount for DICOMatic or any of its modules.
   

5. We wish to purchase a license. What is the procedure for ordering/paying?
   

   You can find the procedure to purchase a license on this "how to buy a license" page.
   In this page, you will also have access to our automatic quote generator and order forms.
   

1. The application does not see my licenses
   

   Most problems with the licenses can be solved by following the instructions in the License troubleshooting page.

2. Do I have to uninstall the previous version when I upgrade the software?
   

   No you dont. Just install the new version on top of the old one.

   However with the new installation, some of the tables may have changed. Since you may have a copy of these files in your user directory (C:\Documents and Settings\your name here\Application Data\TomoVision), your copy may be out of date. If it is, the program will let you know. If which case you can either delete your copy to force the program to use the new one from the installation directory, or add the latest modifications to your copy of the files.

   Also, if your upgrade license has expired, the new version of the software will not be recognized by the licenses.

   If this is the case, you may want to renew your update contract.

3. Can I transfer my licenses to another computer?
   

   Yes you can, the license is in your dongle. Just install the program on the new machine and move your dongle to that system.

1. I get a "Unknown Format" message when I drop my images on DICOMatic
   

   There are so many different image format out there, it is to be expected that DICOMatic can not recognize them all! It could be that your images are in a completely new (to us) format, or maybe it is just a slight variation of a known format.
   
   The best thing to do is to email us a sample of these images. If it is just a variation of a known format, it should be fairly simple for us to modify the program so that it can recognize your images. If it is a format we do not know, then things become more tricky... We may still be able to add this format to our converter, but we will need some help from you! We will need sample images, along with all the information you have on the images and their origin (what scanner produce them, how was it saved...). Of course, if you have the format description it would be a big help.
   
   We do not charge anything for this, but we do expect that, if we manage to add this format to our program, you will buy a license (if you did not already have one).
   
   Since the images usually contain patient information, you will want to sign and fax us a copy of our confidentiality agreement. We will counter sign it and fax it back to you.
   
   Or, if the image data in your file is not compressed, you can create a new header with our Raw_Header tool (see box) and drop that header in DICOMatic to convert the file.

2. I get a message stating "... Please contact TomoVision for more assistance" when I drop my images on DICOMatic.
   

   Your image contains a variation of a known format. We knew (or suspected) that an image such as yours existed, but we never encountered one before. If you could send us your image, we will modify our converter to correctly handle this special case.
   
   Since the images usually contain patient information, you will want to sign and fax us a copy of our confidentiality agreement. We will counter sign it and fax it back to you.

3. Can I make changes to the rules files that will be seen by all the DICOMatic users?
   

   If you use the "configuration" interface to edit the "Conversion Rules" file, you will edit the file in your own user's directory (C:\Documents and Settings\your username here\Application Data\TomoVision). To make these changes visible to all the other users on the system, you either have to replace their copy of the file, or replace the default copy in the installation directory (by default: C:\Program Files\TomoVision) with your own. Make sure to increase the revision number when you edit the file. This will ensure that any other users already having his own copy of the file will be warned that their copy is not up-to-date.

4. How can I push the converted images to my PACS?
   

   The conversion module will not push the images to the PACS. However, you can use the DICOM_Watch module to do this for you. Instead of dropping your images on DICOMatic, start DICOM_Watch and drop your images in the "watched" directory. DICOM_Watch will grab the images, send them to the conversion module and push the converted images to the PACS.

5. How can I place the converted images in a different directory?
   

   This is done either by using the "-d dir_name" command line arguments when calling the application, or by removing the comments and editing the "FILE_PATH" argument in the following lines of the Conversions Rules file:

   
   ; ----------------------------------------------------------------
; Use this rule to send the converted images to a specific directory
; ----------------------------------------------------------------
; if ( 1 )
; {
;    FILE_PATH = "c:\target directory\"
;    AUDIT " file will be written to:" FILE_PATH " " FILE_NAME
;    REPORT " file will be written to:" FILE_PATH " " FILE_NAME
; }


6. Can I use the converter from a batch ?
   

   Yes you can. You will want to get the latest list of command line arguments from the readme file.

7. Can I call the converter from another application ?
   

   Yes you can. This is exactly how readOmatic and DICOM_Watch convert the images. Here is a piece of "C" code that can be used to call DICOMatic from your application:

   
   #include <process.h> // for spawn()
#define DICOM_CONVERTER "DICOMatic"
...

// --- Convert the TIFF image to DICOM ---
int ret = spawnl( P_WAIT, "My_Program", DICOM_CONVERTER,
                "-a", in_file,
                "-b", out_file,
                NULL ) ;

switch( ret ) {
case 0 : // --- it worked
    return( 1 ) ;
case 1 : // --- Unknown image format
    return( 0 ) ;
case 3 : // --- Unable to open input file
    return( 0 ) ;
case 4 : // --- Unable to open output file
    return( 0 ) ;
case 5 : // --- Bad header in input file
    return( 0 ) ;
case 6 : // --- Bad image in input file
    return( 0 ) ;
case 8 : // --- To many images in input file
    return( 0 ) ;
case -1 : // --- Unable to start DICOMatic program
    return( 0 ) ;
case -2 : // --- Unknown arguments
    return( 0 ) ;
default : // --- License problems
    return( 1 ) ;
}
...


8. Can I use DICOMatic to anonymise my images?
   

   You can. There is already a table in the DICOM Tables directory prepared for this: "DICOM_Attributes_Anonymous.txt". The only thing you have to do is edit the module table of the modality you want to anonymize to add the line "Anonymous ;" at the end of the table.
   
   Ex: to anonymize all CT images dropped in DICOMatic, edit the table "DICOM_Module_CT_Image.txt" to add the following lines at the end:
   ; --- Anonymize the images ---
Anonymous ;


9. Can I use DICOMatic to convert TIFF or JPEG images to DICOM ?
   

   Yes you can. However, TIFF and JPEG images do not have any of the patient information needed to make a valid DICOM image. (They also do not have information on the slice position they have only 8 bits of grey levels per pixels). For this reason, if the TIFF or JPEG images are derived from scanner images, try to use the original images instead.

   Since so much information is missing, when converting TIFF and JPEG, DICOMatic will create the image using the "Secondary Capture" (SC) DICOM modality. In this modality, the slice position and the other pixel metrics are not required. But you still need the patient information.

   To add these missing information to the created files, you have 2 choices:

   - You can place the program in "Interactive Mode" and add the missing values by hand.

   Or, if you have access to the missing values in a database,

   - you can write a small program that will interface with DICOMatic to add the missing values. Please see the next question.

10. How can I merge external information with the DICOM files?
    

    The best way to do this is through the DICOM Tables. DICOMatic provide a mechanism to add default or override values to any of the tags in the DICOM tables. (the syntax for this can be found in the manual and in the file "DICOM_Attributes_Syntax.txt" in the DICOM Tables directory.) What is more, DICOMatic also has a mechanism to input an external table that will overwrite the existing table values. This is the "override" table. You can use the [-o override_file] command line arguments to read an override table.

    For example, if we want to convert the file "image.dat" and override its study ID, patient's name and patient's ID. we first create the folowing file:

    file "override.txt"
     = (0010,0010)  "Toto Gingras"         ; Patient Name
     = (0010,0020)  "12345"                ; Patient ID
     = (0020,0010)  "54321"                ; Study ID
    

    and call DICOMatic with the following command:

    DICOMatic -a "c:\image.dat" -o "c:\override.txt"

    The resulting file will be image.dcm in the c: directory.

    
    

    If you only have a few information to change, it can also be done through the rules file. Again, DICOMatic provide a way of inputting variables to the rules files. The command line arguments "-0 string_0" to "-9 string_9" can be used to place the values "string_0" to "string_9" in the user variables "USER_0" to "USER_9". These variables can then be used in the rules file.

    For example, adding the following rules:

    PATIENT_NAME = USER_0
PATIENT_ID = USER_1
STUDY_ID = USER_2

    

    and calling DICOMatic with the following command:

    DICOMatic -a "c:\image.dat" -0 "Toto Gingras" -1 "12345" -2 "54321"

    will have the same results as the previous example.

11. How are the UID (Unique IDentifiers) created in DICOMatic ?
    

    The UID are used to identify some informations in the DICOM files, such as the patient, the study or the image. Each of these informations must be uniquely identified by their UID. In oder word, 2 different entities of a information can not have the same UID. However, if the information is converted by DICOMatic in separate ocasions, it must have the same UID.

    For example, the patient UID must be unique for each patient, but the same patient in 2 different images must have the same UID.

    
    

    To achieve this, DICOMatic create the UID by assembling the following components:

    • root UID: By default, this is the TomoVision’s UID "1.2.826.0.1.3680043.2.307". The value of the root UID can be changed in the command line or the DICOMatic.ini file
    • Code Format: a code representing the format of the original image (up to 2 digits)
    • Code Patient: a code representing the original format, followed by 2 numbers derived from the Patient's name (up to 5 digits) and ID (up to 6 digits).
    • Code Study: a number representing the study date (up to 5 digits) followed by a number derived from the Study number (up to 6 digits).
    • Code Series: a number derived from the Series number (up to 3 digits).
    • Code Image: a number derived from the acquisition, accession and temporal numbers (up to 3 digits) if present, followed by a number derived from the image number (up to 4 digits).
    • Code Frame: the constant 1001

    
    

    To create the different UID found in the DICOM file, the components are assemble thus:

    • Study Instance UID (0020, 000D) = root UID "." Code Format "." Code Patient "." Code Study
    • Series Instance UID (0020, 000E) = root UID "." Code Format "." Code Patient "." Code Study "." Code Series
    • Media Storage SOP Instance UID (0002, 0003) and SOP Instance UID (0008, 0018) = root UID "." Code Format "." Code Patient "." Code Study "." Code Series "." Code Image
    • Frame of Reference UID (0020, 0052) = root UID "." Code Format "." Code Patient "." Code Study "." Code frame

    
    

    Note: The maximum length that an image UID can have is 64 bytes.
    The scheme we use can take up to 38 characters without counting the root UID. The default root UID used by DICOMatic (TomoVision's UID) has 25 characters. If you want to replace this value by one of your own, be aware that it should not have more than 26 characters!