27.3. EatDicom.exe (deprecated)

27.3. EatDicom.exe (deprecated)
	Chapter 27. Tips and Tricks

EatDicom.exe is a tool to sort DICOM files consistently and construct 2d, 3d, and 4d (time series of 3d images) images on output. Image data is stored in a TIFF file (.tif), supplementary information summarized in a DICOM file with same filename (.dcm). Missing slices are bridged with empty slices up to a maximum gap size (i. e. number of missing slices).

	Note
	More convenient alternatives for importing DICOM are the modules `DicomImport` or `DirectDicomImport`, provided by Fraunhofer MEVIS. Development of EatDicom has been abandoned in favor of these modules.

	Note
	Currently, `EatDicom.exe` cannot process tilted data (as typically done for head shots). The error message is “stderr: The dicom data contains no differences in acquisition time nor in content time, found in [filename].”

The tool comes with a high number of options, which can also be entered as an option file.

To run EatDicom.exe from the command line, the full MeVisLab application has to be installed, because the tool depends on the MeVisLab libraries. In addition, paths have to be set.

On Windows: Due to the package structure, EatDicom.exe is located in MeVisLab/Packages/MeVis/Foundation/bin/, a folder usually not included in PATH. This may result in problems with missing DLLs when starting the executable. Three solutions are possible:

Add the PATH to the registry.
Go via the MeVisLabPackageScanner. For example, enter this in the command line: C:\Programme\MeVisLab\Packages\MeVisLab\IDE\bin\MeVisLabPackageScanner.exe -run C:\Programme\MeVisLab\Packages\MeVis\Foundation\bin\eatdicom.exe [arguments] (correct the paths as necessary)
Copy EatDicom.exe from the package MeVis/Foundation/bin to the package MeVisLab/IDE/bin and start it from the command line.

If no arguments or -help are entered, the help file will be displayed automatically.

Figure 27.2. Excerpt of the EatDicom help

When the executable is run, an import log is displayed.

Figure 27.3. Dicom Import Log


27.2. MeVisLabPackageScanner.exe		27.4. Connecting Inventor Engines to ML Modules