A DICOM viewer for the scan disc you were handed
Hospitals and imaging centers hand out scans as DICOM files, usually on a CD with a DICOMDIR index, and Windows has nothing built in that can read them. A DICOM viewer fills that gap. This one is built for the person holding the disc as much as the specialist.
Choose Open disc and it follows the DICOMDIR; if a disc has no index, it reads each file on it instead, then groups the images into series in a side list. A copied folder, a loose image or a file missing its extension opens the same way, and dragging onto the window works as well. Files on the disc that are not DICOM images, such as the bundled viewer program, are skipped, and a note tells you how many.
Hide patient details is on from the start, so names, IDs and birth dates stay off the films, the info panel and any image you save until you turn it off. That makes it safer to look at a study with someone beside you or to share your screen.
Treat it as a way to look, never as a way to diagnose: the software has no regulatory clearance as a medical device, and nothing it shows should drive a clinical decision. If the images are yours, talk them through with your doctor.
How to open DICOM files and DCM scans on a PC
Whether the study came on a disc, a USB stick or as a download, the steps are short:
- Insert the disc, then choose Open disc… and point it at the drive.
- For a copied folder, choose Open folder…; for one or two images, Open files… accepts .dcm, .dicom, .dic and .ima.
- Pick a series in the side list and turn the mouse wheel to move through the slices, or switch the wheel to zoom in Settings.
- Press play to animate the stack at 5 to 30 frames a second, with Loop on or off.
An MRI and CT scan viewer that rebuilds every plane
Every CT or MR study arrives as a stack of flat slices. Turn on MPR + 3D and the viewer stacks them into a volume, then shows front and side views next to the original, with reference lines marking where each plane cuts the others. Thick-slab projection blends 2, 5, 10, 20 or 40 mm of slices as a maximum intensity (MIP), minimum intensity (MinIP) or average view.
For CT, one-click window presets cover lung, bone, soft tissue, brain, subdural and stroke, and the pixel value under the cursor is read out in Hounsfield units. You can also drag over an area to set the window from it, or type a custom width and level. Put 1, 2, 4 or 9 films on screen at once, scroll them together, or open a second study to compare against.
Turn a DICOM scan into an STL file for 3D printing
The same volume becomes a surface model you can drag to spin. CT models are cut at a Hounsfield threshold: bone at 300 HU, dense bone at 700 HU or skin at −300 HU, or any value you enter. MRI has no fixed scale, so the viewer offers an outline and an inner-detail level measured from the scan in front of you. Model detail runs from Draft to Fine.
Export the result as an STL model for a slicer or another 3D app. A series needs at least 8 evenly stacked slices with position data for this to work, so a single X-ray will not become a model.
