Maverick/VisibleManTxtToMhd

Introduction

The Visible Man data consists of a pair of files per CT slice:

• The slice's data in a binary-encoded format (.fre) that isn't readable by many programs
  • e.g., c_vm1013.fre, c_vm1014.fre, ...
  • The binary data (uncompressed) for the slice actually occurs at the end of this file
  • The header size for this file (the information before the data begins) is of variable length
• A text file (.txt) that describes the acquisition parameters of the slice
  • Describes the origin, spacing, directions, kEv, etc for each slice

This utility program will convert a list of .txt files from the visible man collection to corresponding .mhd files, which allow the corresponding slices to be read by the MetaImage library which is included with ITK and VTK and supported by numerous applications such as Kitware's Maverick application as well as Slicer, Analyze, and others.

Usage

At this time this utility program is only available with a command-line interface.

Maverick/bin/VisibleManTxtToMhd <input.txt> <output.mhd>

The first argument is the path to the visible man's .txt file to be converted.

The second argument is the output path to the .mhd file to be created.

Warning: The .mhd files only point to the binary data (in this case the .fre file) that they describe. The slice data is not duplicated in the .mhd file. Therefore, to use this .mhd file to read the slice data, the .mhd file must be created and/or placed in the same directory as the .fre file to which it points.

Hint: The .mhd files are text files. Any text editor can be used to create or modify these files. Additional MetaImage documentation is ONLINE.

Use cases

Linux

From within the directory containing the .fre and .txt files from the Visible Man, type:

Windows

Install cygwin and follow the directions for linux.