The Dicom Java Viewer 
	Version 1.3.0  April 4th 1998

This is a Dicom viewer which  let you view a Dicom image directly on your computer provided it is equiped with the Java Virtual Machine which comes with Internet Explorer or which can be freely downloaded from Sun Microsystem web's site.

DICOM  is a protocole for medical imaging , currently known as DICOM 3 or ACR Nema Format.

This program  shows that Dicom files are easily readable.  This 120 K application  takes very few memory thanks to the power of Java .

If  you use it, please tell me what you think of it,   e-mail me :   sderhy@imaginet.fr


What is this image format for  ?
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 	 By now, all  physicians , radiologists, and people who works with medical images are looking at radiographic films which are displayed on big and roomy  lightboxes. These radiographic films are expensive, they reject chemical polluting agents such as silver nitrates, are heavy and difficult to store. Meanwhile, medical imaging use more and more digital imaging technologies for creating images such as CT, US, MRI, angiography, digital radiography and fluoroscopy ... All these modalities, originally viewed on computer's screens are translated into conventional films in order to let other physicians view them on lightboxes !

	Since the ACR-NEMA or DICOM (Digital Imaging Communication in Medicine ) is getting to be a standard for digital image networking and storage in medicine, the idea is to replace the old physician lightbox by a simple DicomViewer which uses little room in your doctor's computer's memory and let him read the images as they were originally viewed  : on a computer screen.

Why medical imaging does not use standard file storage protocoles  like GIF or JPEG  ? 
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	Actually, DICOM  was originally designed as a  communication protocole between  medical imaging devices. Its aim is to ease  communications between multiple vendor's devices , by means of a well defined stream of data through hospital's and clinic's network . Naturally these data streams end up as files on workstation's hardrives ,  and this is where one would want retrieve them .

	Because there are important  patient 's data related to the image (patient information , study information, clinical information ..)   it was  necessary not to end up with  orphan images, particularly in distributed systems where data as well as images would be transfered and stored in different locations over a network. Dicom is a convenient way to package image data and patient related datas.



System Requirements
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On Windows95 and Windows NT :
	You need to download the Java Runtime Environment 1.1. or later which can be obtained from Sun microsystem web's site. 
	http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.1/jre/index.html

	You can  also use the Java Virtual Machine which is included with InternetExplorer  version 4 or later.

On Apple MacIntosh computers:
	MRJ 1.02 (comes with MacOS 8), but preferably MRJ 1.5 or MRJ2
	you can download from http://applejava.apple.com
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Limitations :
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 This viewer allows for  only 256 shades of gray , images with more shades of gray  are converted to fit  256 gray levels.
 Its is limited to files smaller than 1 megabyte.
 This viewer is a "blackbox" it does'nt provide a real Dicom implementation, rather, it helps you 		viewing the dicom images that come from medical devices such as scanner , IRM , medical workstation etc...


Unix version of DicomViewer :

This application was written in Java and can be therefore used in a multiplatform environment  you can get the plain java version from my web page with the user's instructions  :
												
		http://www.imaginet.fr/~sderhy/dicJava.html

( good luck !)



Changes since version 1.01 alpha :
It includes an automatic parser for dicom files or the possibility to choose between automatic parsing or maual parsing.
This new version is compatible with  sun's JDK 1.1 though it use deprecated methods.
It includes the possibility for saving files from dicom to the GIF format and it can save part of the text  information include with dicom.
The pseudo-color bug is now fixed.
Better implementation of Apple MRJ though this version doesn't follow Apple human guidelines for programmers.
 A new icon was designed ! 
 An option for  viewing JPEG or GIF images is now available.
A Dicom sample image is included with this package.

Thanks :
Special thanks to David Clunie who wrote the Dicom Faq which let me understand this format.
And to Sophie my lovely wife .


Copyright :
 This software is freeware and can be freely distributed. Nevertheless, it is copyright,  January 04 1998 , by Serge Derhy, who reserves all rights to it. For  commercial use or for a customization  please contact me.

Author :
Written  by  Serge  Derhy mailto:sderhy@imaginet.fr  http://www.imaginet.fr/~sderhy 
 Please e-mail !!


Dr Serge Derhy
Centre d'Imagerie Interventionnelle
18 rue Bachaumont
75002 Paris- France.
(00 33 )01 45 08 94 84

Fax  (00 33)0140264301
