Welcome to MEDVIEW version 12.0

Please take a few moments to familiarize yourself with some of the new features and changes in this latest release. We encourage you to explore more of this user guide as time permits. You can return to this page at any time from MedView by choosing “What's New in MedView” from the “Help” menu.

Fixes & Enhancements in MedView 12.0:

Enhancements
  • Substantially enhanced Region of Interest tools in Template windows (includes copy/paste, cloning, graphing, export statistics, export regions, add/different/average, saved in SSA's. More...
  • Template Window Annotation. Four tools have been added to the Template window to allow arbitration window annotation: arrow tool, text tool, angle measurement tool and pencil tool). More...
  • Select Patient: add Recent Visits button to allow easy switching between most recent visits and all visits/patients (details...).
  • Select Patient: Database List: add custom/canned query mechanism (details...).
  • Make CD: a new option to compress Medview image data on CD can improve performance in some cases (details...).
  • Template View Export images to DICOM: allow export as a series of single-frame secondary capture in addition to multiframe Secondary Capture (details...)
  • Miscellaneous Option: allow different patients on screen (details...)
  • Template Window: implement simple two window position linking (details...)
  • Visit Management Palette:: add Make CD and Send Via DICOM functions (buttons)
  • Visit Management Palette: add remove capability to allow the removal of image and other files visible in the palette.
  • Template Windows: when creating a template, you can now specify a custom initial size for the window (details...)
  • Template Provide quick method to flip between 0%, 50% and 100 % blend in a blended/fused view. The "[", "]" and "/" hot-keys.
  • Miscellaneous Option: Template/Flex Windows: Pixel Neighborhood tooltip: provide option to disable this feature for those who dislike it.
  • Miscellaneous Options: SSA: add option to have default action of SSA warn dialog be Open all Anyway rather than OK.
  • No Saved Arrangements state: put indicator in patient info strip (blue barge) showing whether or not SSA's are disabled or enabled (details...)
  • Save Screen Arrangements (SSA): draw indicator next to patient name in patient info strip (blue barge) showing whether or not all image files for the patient visit are displayed. (details...)
  • Select Patient: provide easy way to close all expanded items (Windows control+alt click, Macintosh command+option click a disclosure control)
  • Miscellaneous Option: Template: Transverse views will auto-zoom on initial window display (details...)
  • Miscellaneous Option: Template: Transverse view add miscellaneous option to specify initial slice to display (details...)
  • Miscellaneous Option: add a slice numbering technique popup (details)
  • Miscellaneous Option: Use Bed Position Miscellaneous Option and Juni Registration output were not compatible.
  • Miscellaneous Option: option to allow suppression of the "case sensitve volumes" warning.
  • Support for DICOM image overlays (CT Reports).
  • PatientsDB/Select Patient: add institution name to database and display in db list display of select patient
  • PatientsDB: add image file manufacturer, manufacturerModel and stationname fields, populating if underlying image file format supports them and they have been supplied by the file creator.
General Fixes/Adjustments
  • Pixel under cursor on a blended view, instead of display intensity, now shows more useful values (details...)
  • PET/CT blended view special handing of 100% NM/PET (details...)
  • PET/CT Brain incorrectly classed as Short Axis
  • Support the display of images with non-square pixels.
  • HMPAO ICON Brain data classed as oblique (short axis), instead of just transverse.
  • Rotation of views with differentrows and columns (count of pixels) dimensions caused volume (displayed) clipping.
  • Template CINE control can randomly initially cine at the maximum rate.
  • Template Window: region under cursor: if cursor is in pane but not over image data, a blank tooltip appears.
  • Region Tools: after single use of tool, drop tool and revert to triangulation tool.
  • Select Patient et al: increase max patients hierarchical patients database nesting level from 3 to 5.
  • Select Patient: database view: when double-clicking a patient to disclose that patient's visits, if the patient id (MRN) has alpha chars embedded, the action will fail (nothing happens).
  • Select Patient: when the result of a query consists of visits from one patient, the reduced visit list displayed should initially be by date, with most recent first.
  • Select Patient: database list: sort by date can be wrong depending on the current system date format selected.
  • MedView Integration Interface: when data is opened by (ie checking a Patients cache first before executing import) opendata or finddata, save screen arrangements are not applied.
  • MedView is limited to opening approximately 100 visits per launch, in some circumstances. Typically when the visits are opened by the integration interface or by drag and drop of visit onto MedView.
  • MedView is looking for and creating if missing, identification files named with all lower case letters rendering it incompatible with case sensitive file systems.
  • Flex/Template Window: measure line (Ruler) tool line is too thick. Reduce to one screen pixel in thickness.
  • Integration Interface: finddata: with no database, if patidoraccnum=true is specified and study or series iuid is specified, all data matching patientid or accession number, if specified or ALL data if not specified is returned.
  • Integration Interface: finddata: was stripping leading 0's from accession number and shouldn't.
  • SaveScreen dialog: nowhonors return/enter/escape/cmd-. for keyboard control of dialog buttons.
  • Make cmd/control-, (comma) the menu key (shortcut) for Miscellaneous Options dialog.
  • Template Windows: template specified views with position offset set to > 0: stepping slices forward or backward was not supported.
  • SSA: Merged Row Tomo: gated: if Sum bins is checked when SSA (this visit) is made, contrast settings were not applied.
  • DICOM lossless encoding was not handling color images.
  • Address Book: fixed a crash when deleting an entry.
  • Select Patient: search: search multiple patients lists (**, ***): if search finds nothing, select patient ends up pointing at last patients list searched rather than original.
  • DICOM Snapshot: substantial memory leak fixed.
  • Exporting ICON Savescreen now includes proper DICOM element population.
  • Patients Database: on initial access of a patients folder (ie on launch), if a database version mismatch is detected, offer Database Management Workstations the option to recreate the databse. Otherwise allow continue with read-only (cannot update the database) operation.
  • Patients Database: on initial access of a patients folder (ie on launch), if a database permissions problem (not read/writeable by all or group)is detected, offer Database Management Workstations the option to try to fix the database file permissions.
  • File Menu: Export to TIFF: Fails when generating a single image file (i.e. a savescreen).
  • Make CD: SSA's do not work on Windows burnt CD's when opened on Macintosh due to case-sensitive file system.
  • Integration: series search/open: if an SSA is present that does not include the file to be opened, the open was suppressed and shouldn't have been.
  • When opening a study that is in a visit that requires MedView to create an Identification file, errors could be reported randomly.
  • Template window: random occurrences of studies in a visit (not primary study, but a secondary, like a PET for a CT or vice versa) not loading into a template.
  • Patients Database Import: do a better job of merging patient demographics information so that the best information from all image files/series of a study (visit) is used.
  • SSA: in some circumstances, was not displaying the Save Screen Warning if some study windows are not opened due to SSA.
  • Template Window: certain imported DICOM files imported into MIPS format (old MedImport et al) would not open in some circumstances.
  • With some size/arrangments of the MDI window on multi-monitor systems, the Patient info ribbon (Blue barge) was sized incorrectly (too small)
  • Invia Corridor 4DM:: window size/position saved for 4DM on exit is incorrect if the 4DM window is minimized at the time.
  • Template window: linking: if one offsets a vol render in one window from the other, links, then cine's you can get black frames.
  • Template Windows: Tools pane can make windows wider than is desirable.
  • Bookmarks: on opening a bookmark, SSA warn dialog is present and shouldn't be.
  • Make CD: MedView LE/Demo: if the user has set a default patients folder location (Misc Options) this is passed in the LE settings and used and should not be.
  • Protocol SSA: multiple monitor systems: opening two visits at once with the same protocol SSA. Separating onto different monitors no longer worked.
  • MedView LE, Templates: enabling of volume registration Translate and Rotate tools was inconsistant between standard MedView and MedView LE.
  • MicroPET-CT: CT transverse data was rotated by 90 degrees clockwise (no orientation vector was supplied in the DICOM header for MedView to use to present the correct orientation.
  • Intelerad 48 bit color snapshot was not displayed properly.
  • Misc. Option: Use Appearance Panel's Display color images in original colors could cause MedView to crash
  • ICON Savescreen, export to DICOM was not populating the institution name element.
  • MedView now supports native Cardiarc-Interfile display.
  • Voll Reg (Juni registration): MedView would crash if only the two windows being registered are open.
  • Random crash opening old VReg (Juni) files created with MedView 11.6 and prior
  • When retrieved from a PACs, MedView generated files (SSA, Bookmarks, volreg, ...) were not grouped with the original study.
  • Template Window: contrast by mouse, contrast by area: these tools are now not supported on fused views as we don't know which volume to adjust.
  • FlexTemplates, default labels - add date of birth and series description.
  • Select Patient: remember and restore scroll position when doing a list rebuild (eg due to new data arriving)
  • SSA: Protocol: patient names/ids appear in protocol based SSAs and should not as these may be distributed.
  • Template zoom linking similar views, add a requirement that sizes must be similar
  • Select Patient: DB mode: switching lists manually does not refresh the list to the new patients contents.
  • Template Window misc option "auto adjust contrast on dark images" does not properly adjust contrast on secondary (background) images of a fused view.
  • Select Patient: Database list: for image file level list item, display acquisition date rather than study date.
  • Template Window: display of static images, add view labels to the display.
  • MedView Identification file date parsing can fail to interpret a date from MedImport created identification file
  • Monitors handling: infinite loop if two monitors in list (first and last) have same coordinate space
  • Template Window: custom templates created from SSA's passed on volume position from SSA state and should not.
  • ICON SaveScreen: Printing: Patient Name was not being printed.
  • Slice Thickness was being incorrectly interpreted in direct reading of Interfile.
  • MicroPET CT image scaling problem caused by large positive numbers (>= 2^15)
  • MicroPET small pixel size (.07) exposed a buffer overrun error in template window volume rendering code
Windows Fixes
  • Windows: MedView 11.7 does not launch under Win 2000. "The procedure entry point TzSpecificLocalTimeToSystemTime could not be located in the dynamic link library KERNEL32.dll"
  • Windows: MedView 11.7 does not launch under Win 2000. "The procedure entry point SymFromAddr could not be located in the dynamic link library DbgHelp.dll"
  • Windows: FAT32 file systems: patientsdb: crash using patients database on file systems not supporting permissions under windows.
  • Windows: Template Window: ROI List View: crash hiding ROI list view from it's own contextual popup menu.
  • Windows: Template Window: ROI List View: crash subtracting two ROI stats.
  • Windows: File Menu: Open Image File item: can't open a file when one or more files is already open.
  • Windows: Integration Interface: if application is minimized and we try to open windows (eg by finddata), they get created offscreen (not visible).
  • Windows: Template & Flex window: duplicate window. Duplicate window opens behind others.
  • Windows: Chinese character set: Unicode trademark symbol in folder names caused failure to find critical folders (MedView Color Tables, et al).
  • Windows: Chinese character set: On fresh install of MedView, MedView crashed on launch.
  • Windows: About box/splash screen and other windows could appear outside of MDI due to unusual monitor arrangement.
  • Windows: Misc Options: minimize when not front application setting value wasn't retained and was ignored.
  • Windows: Select Patient: crash dragging select patient list item.
  • Windows: identification files (res fork) could be left open after visit close.
  • Windows: at the point of creating any window in MedView, if minimized, automatically un-minimize first.
  • Windows: color (true color 24-bit) jpeg files (color) display with incorrect colors.
Mac Fixes
  • Macintosh: sometimes changing format from non-template window to template window on second monitor resulted in offscreen title bar or too large of window (larger than screen).
  • Macintosh: Remote file systems: Permissions: media with read-only permissions where the error return code is -5000 (afp permissions error). For Identification file access, it is irrelevant to report so suppress errors with this value.
  • Macintosh: random crashes occurred in Carbon event handling call-backs while printing dialogs (Page set up, Print).
  • Macintosh: Printing: "-43 SavePrefsRsrc failed" alerts appeared when printing some image files.
  • Macintosh: minimized image file window should only un-minimize itself due to specific user action.
  • Macintosh: PatientsDB: MacOS file locking . MedView (Mac) on Snow Leopard client via AFP locks out local apps from database. General database locking issues with Snow Leopard clients (OS change in AFP locking behaviour).
  • Macintosh: If the "Patients" item is an alias pointing at a remote disk folder and that remote disk is not mounted when MedView is launched, the alias will not be resolved.
  • Macintosh: random failures of scroll wheel operation.
  • Macintosh: Support for multi-page pdf files. Currently, we show just one page.
  • Macintosh: Print Window dialog not saving/restoring user margin prefs (res fork studies only can do this)
  • Macintosh: Print Window dialog not drawing boxes around Margin and Font areas in the right place (too high)
  • Macintosh: clicking zoom control on a window zooms the window too large (by the height of the title bar).
  • Macintosh: template change while cine-ing can draw artifacts on window and desktop.

Item Details

The rules for what values are displayed for a blended view:

  • If the blend is showing less than 5% of a slice, the other slice's values are used.
  • Otherwise if slice 1 is PET and slice 2 is not PET, show PET slice.
  • Otherwise if slice 2 is PET and slice 1 is not PET, show PET slice.
  • If both the slices are PET or both the slices are not PET, if the blend is > 40% of slice one show it, otherwise show slice two's units.
  • In some areas the two slices that are being blended do not overlap. In this area of the blended view, where only one slice is being displayed, MedView will show units for this slice regardless of modality or blend percentage.

If a dual series template has series specifications of CT/*, and the "*" matched series is nuclear medicine or PET showing in the blended color table, when the slider is 100% to the NM/PT ("*"), show the nuclear medicine or PET image in that modality's default color table, as specified in Miscellaneous Options Appearance tab.

This only effects NM and PET (modalities where there is a default color table for the blended view). If the slider is moved to position 0% or 100% of the slider, the slice will be displayed in the default non-fused color table.

Allow Different Patients on Screen option

The new Miscellaneous option allows you to optionally allow or disallow images from more than one patient on screen simultaneously. Previously, concurrent viewing of different patients was allowed always.

Template Window: two window position linking

This new feature, invoked using the standard window linking tool, allows you to now link two template windows volume positions so that when you navigate images in one of the linked windows, the other window is automatically positioned as well. This allows you to adjust two windows to the same anatomical position, link them and then navigate either and the displayed images track together.

Template Windows: you can now specify a custom inital size.

You can do this by editing your custom template and setting the template top, left, bottom, right properties as follows:

  • left: 0
  • top: 0
  • bottom: height of window in millimeters (must be set to more than 50mm)
  • right: width of window in millimeters (must be set to more than 50mm)

No Saved Arrangements state: put indicator in patient info strip (blue barge) showing whether or not SSA's are disabled or enabled.

A red SSA icon means that SSA's are disabled:

A green SSA icon means they are enabled:

The icon also acts a a button, allowing you to turn SSA application on and off, simply by clicking on it.

Save Screen Arrangements (SSA): draw indicator next to patient name in patient info strip (blue barge) showing whether or not all image files for the patient visit are displayed.

A red filled oval means some images not currently showing:

Green means all images for the current study/visit are showing:

Select Patient: Database List: add custom/canned query mechanism.

The Select Patient window now has a pop-up menu Query, that lets you select from a customizable menu of patients database queries (specified in SQL).

Choosing a query from the resultant menu:

Queries

causes the query to be executed and the patient list (either file or database based) to display the results of the query.

Example queries are provided with this update.

Both in the MedTools folder and in the MedView(tm) folder in preferences, there now exists a folder for custom database query files (titled "Queries" in MedTools and "Custom Queries" in MedView(tm) folder.

These are just text files with an ".sql" extension containing a raw SQL query statement. Several sample queries are provided with the install:

  • Cardiac Studies.sql - finds all visits with image files with keywords with the string "card" in the study identifier element.
  • Institution xxx.sql - you need to edit and provide the institution name. You can duplicate the file for multiple institution searches.
  • Last 360 Days Nested.sql - finds all studies acquired in the last 360 days.
  • NM Studies.sql - finds all studies which have image files that have modality "NM".
  • Patients older than 60 at study time.sql
  • Patients older than 60 by birthdate.sql
  • PET Studies (by modality).sql
  • PET Studies (by protocol).sql
  • Phys Current Prefs Set Name Visits.sql - finds all studies whose referring physician name matches the currently selected Save Screen Arrangements preferences set (Preferences menu item)
  • Phys xxx.sql - you need to edit the file and provide the physician name (referring)
  • Phys Current UserID Visits.sql - finds all studies whose referring physician name matches the currently specified "user id" (supported by some PACs integrations).
  • Phys SystemUser Visits.sql - finds all studies whose referring physician name matches the current logged in system user.
  • Visits with big series (by nImages & nRows).sql

If you specified a query whose file name is "default.sql", this query will be executed on your initial open of the Select Patient window.

Queries can specify data selection clauses, as well as sort order specifications.

Template Window: Transverse views will auto-zoom on initial window display

Auto-zoom of the transverse view is controlled by a Miscellaneous option in the Template (Macintosh) or Tomo (Windows) panel. The default is Auto-zoom off. If it is off, the zoom functions as it does now. Changing the Miscellaneous option does not have any effect on currently open template windows. The change will be seen with the new template window open (not a template format switch).

When this option is enabled, at the initial display of a window, the software tries to determine the minimum rectangle that when intersected with each transverse image, contains the acquired anatomy. When a transverse image is displayed, this has the effect of fitting the intersection within the viewing rectangle. If there are multiple transverse views, they are displayed at the same size and the intersection should be centered in the view. Because of differing aspect ratios of the intersection rectangle and the view dimensions, you will normally see an area greater than the minimal intersection for some views.

Autozoom remains in effect in the window until and if the user changes the zoom setting in any view, or the window is closed. There is no on-off toggling control. Switching to a new template will not re-invoke it, but if it is still enabled, it will continue to be enabled on a template switch.

Limitations...

Auto-zoom is not image based: We do not autozoom on each image, but the whole body. So if you have a head and torso, and you are looking at transverse sections of the head, you may think the head could be zoomed more. That is not supported. As you scroll through the transverse images you notice how the body shifts but should always be visible and not cut off.

Noisy images: If there is a lot of background noise, the intersection box may not be minimal, and thus it may look like auto-zoom is not in efect. The image may be magnified, but not as much as you may expect.

If you perform a SSA when the effect is operational, the zoom should be saved and restored.

Template View Export images to DICOM: allow export as a series of single-frame secondary capture in addition to multiframe Secondary Capture

Previously, the Template window contextual menu item "Export Slices to DICOM" exported the images in a view to a multi-frame DICOM secondary capture file. A new export item has been added to allow the images/slices to be exported as a series of individual single image DICOM secondary capture file:

The prior export item is titled Export DICOM SC multi-frame and the new export is Export DICOM SD single frame.

Make CD: a new option to compress Medview image data on CD can improve performance in some cases

A new option has been added to the Make CD function to allow the (MedView data only, i.e., not DICOM dir data) to be compressed.

If the Make CD export is on read-only media, the data will be decompressed each time it is accessed to a Temporary folder location. If the export is on writeable data, the data is decompressed in place.

Select Patient: add Recent Visits button to allow easy switching between most recent visits and all visits/patients

Normally, the Select Patient window shows all visits (all patients) in the current patients lists, sorted by patient name, ascending. You can reorder the list to sort by date, newest to oldest or vice versa. To make viewing recent visits more convenient, Select Patient now has a button Recent Visits that, when clicked, reduces the display to visits acquired in the last 90 days, sorted most recent first.

Recent Visits Button

You can expand (view more older visits) or contract (fewer, more recent visits) by clicking the associated "+" and "-" buttons. Which expand or contract the date range by 1 month. Holding down the shift key causes the range to be modified by 1 day, option/alt by 6 months, control by one year. Double-clicking restores the range to the last 90 days.

After clicking Recent Visits

Note that after clicking Recent Visits, the button title changes to Patients, the "All Patients" label changes to "Matching", and the date range is indicating in the search text field (blue).

You can restore the list to "All Patients" by clicking the Patients button again (which was retitled to Patients from Recent Visits) or pressing the "delete" key.

Template Window: Transverse view add miscellaneous option to specify initial slice to display

Traditionally the template view's initial position has been the center of the volume. This was accomplished arbitrarily by making the origin of the coordinate system used to be the center of the volume, which is to say, the internal geometry defines the center of the volume as the origin (0,0,0).

With MedView 11.7, the ability for the user to tell MedView to use the coordinate system provided by the file was added: the Miscellaneous Option Use Bed Position. This is very useful when the imager is taking multiple scans with unequal size volumes, i.e. CTAC, abdomen and chest. The old method would center these volumes not aligned and using the bed position improves the volume alignment.

After the Bed Position facility was added, it was found that the initial transverse slice (z position = 0), was not always in the volume as it was before. For example, if the bed position of the top slice was -600mm and the bottom slice was -100mm. there would be no slice to display at bed position 0 mm. This enhancement addresses this problem and also allows the user more control over the initial slice displayed in a template view.

Some users wish to start at the top slice, and move down to see all the slices, whereas others will prefer the center of volume,the traditional view.

Also added was an option to use the center of mass, this is the initial position used by the Hall and Row Tomo window formats.. The center of mass tries to locate and display the center area of the body. The center of mass is a approximate calculation, which will be close to it but not exact. The difference between center of mass and center of volume can really be appreciated when the body is not centered in the field of view.

Miscellaneous Option: add a slice numbering technique popup

All DELTAmanager composite DICOM volume files (multi-files or mff files) have image orderings from foot to head. Image 1 being toward the feet and the last image being towards the head. For previous version of MedView all windows number images using file order. So multi-files are always numbered from foot to head. This is not always what users wish.

NM DICOM and native files can be either head to foot or foot to head order. The order isn't arbitrary but it is harder to tell what the real ordering is, typically a manufacturer would always order one of the two ways when producing their DICOMs files.

A Miscellaneous Option has been added to allow the user to have more control of the image numbering in Flex and Template window formats. This option is in the Template panel (Macintosh) or Tomo panel (Windows). The user can choose Image File Numbering or Head to Foot. Image File Numbering is the way all previous versions of MedView have numbered images.

Head to Foot specifies that the image number in Flex and Template displays of the transverse image will be from Head to Foot. Depending on the file, this may not have any effect (i.e. for files whom file order is head to foot). For Multifiles it will always change.