Evaluation of Free Non-Diagnostic DICOM Software Tools

A variety of software exists to interpret files or directories compliant to the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) standard and display them as individual images or volume rendered objects. Some of them offer further processing and analysis features. The surveys that have been published so far are partly not up-to-date anymore, and neither a detailed description of the software functions nor a comprehensive comparison is given. This paper aims at evaluation and comparison of freely available, non-diagnostic DICOM software with respect to the following aspects: (i) data import; (ii) data export; (iii) header viewing; (iv) 2D image viewing; (v) 3D volume viewing; (vi) support; (vii) portability; (viii) workability; and (ix) usability. In total, 21 tools were included: 3D Slicer, AMIDE, BioImage Suite, DicomWorks, EViewBox, ezDICOM, FPImage, ImageJ, JiveX, Julius, MedImaView, MedINRIA, MicroView, MIPAV, MRIcron, Osiris, PMSDView, Syngo FastView, TomoVision, UniViewer, and XMedCon. Our results in table form can ease the selection of appropriate DICOM software tools. In particular, we discuss use cases for the inexperienced user, data conversion, and volume rendering, and suggest Syngo FastView or PMSDView, DicomWorks or XMedCon, and ImageJ or UniViewer, respectively.