How to open a .DCM file? What is the DCM file extension? What program to open the dcm.

Digital images are classified as raster image files and those saved in the DCM format are also called DICOM image files. These DCM files are appended with the extension .dcm and "DICOM" in the DICOM image format stands for Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine. The DCM image format was developed by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), which also developed the DICOM image format. NEMA DICOM developed and DCM format as standard specifications for medical imaging for data storage, distribution and analysis. The DCM format is used to save images, which may include ultrasound images, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and CT (computed tomography) scan sheets among others. The content of these DCM files may also include patient data such as the patient's name and other relevant medical data. The GIMP software can be used on a Microsoft Windows based system to open and view the contents of these DCM files. Linux users can also use the Unix-based version of GIMP to implement support into their systems to open and view these DCM files. There is also a version of GIMP developed for Mac platforms. There are also numerous other applications that can be used to create, open and edit the contents of these DCM files.

What is this DCM file?

Files with the .DCM extension contain digital medical images as well as patient information encoded in the standardized DICOM format, short for Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine.

The format allows you to save images for medical examination, such as magnetic resonance imaging or MRI for short computed tomography, also known as CT, as well as ultrasound, abbreviated as USG. The DCM format was introduced by NEMA, which is short for the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, with the goal of creating a uniform method for storing exam images and patient information, as well as exam descriptions.

Program(s) that can open the file .DCM

Windows

MacOS

linux

How to open DCM files

If a situation has arisen in which you cannot open a DCM file on your computer, there may be several reasons. The first and at the same time the most important (the most common) is the lack of a suitable application that supports DCM among those that are installed on your computer.

The easiest way to solve this problem is to find and download the appropriate application. The first part of the task has already been completed - you will find programs to support the DCM file below. Now it is enough to download and install the appropriate application.

This site also defines other possible causes causing the problems with DCM files.

Possible problems with the DCM format files

The inability to open and work with the DCM file should not mean at all that we do not have the appropriate software installed on our computer. There may be other issues that also block our ability to operate the Dicom Medicine Image File Format file. Below is a list of possible problems.

• Corruption of a DCM file which is being opened
• Incorrect links to the DCM file in registry entries.
• Accidental deletion of the description of the DCM from the Windows registry
• Incomplete installation of an application that supports DCM format
• The DCM file which is being opened is infected with an undesirable malware.
• There is not enough space on the computer to open the DCM file.
• Drivers of equipment used by the computer to open a DCM file are out of date.

If you are sure that all of the above reasons do not exist in your case (or have already been ruled out), the DCM file should work with your programs without any problems. If the problem with the DCM file has not been solved, it may be due to the fact that in this case there is another rare problem with the DCM file. In this case, only the help of a specialist remains.

How to associate a file with an installed program?

If you want to associate a file with a new program (eg moj-plik.DCM) you have two options. The first and the easiest one is to right-click on the selected DCM file. From the open menu select an option Select default program", then the option "Revisit" and find the required program. The entire operation must be approved by pressing the OK button.

Is there a universal method for opening unknown files?

Many files contain data in the form of text or numbers. It is possible that during the opening of unknown files (for example, DCM), a simple text editor, popular in the Windows system, which is Notatnik will allow us to see some of the data encoded in the file. This method allows you to view the contents of many files, but not in the same form as the program designed to serve them.

The question often arises: if the results of an MRI or CT were given out on a disk, how to view the images? Indeed, in recent years, medical centers are increasingly resorting to issuing images on CD or DVD, and this is better than having images on film. Why is it possible. So how can you view MRI and CT images from a disk, using which program?

About the CT and MRI file format

The CT or MRI exam files on the disk are in a special DICOM format and cannot be opened with conventional image viewers. DICOM is a medical image format where, in addition to the actual picture, other information is “embedded” into each file – the patient’s name, age, image number, scanning mode designations, etc.

Programs for opening CT and MRI files

To open images from a CD, you will need a special program - a DICOM viewer. There are many such programs, paid and free. The most convenient of the free programs is Radiant DICOM Viewer. You can download it. This program can open absolutely any medical images in DICOM format, such as MRI, CT, PET-CT, X-ray, mammography, angiography, etc.

To open images with the Radiant program, you need to copy the entire contents of the disk to a folder on your computer, then go to the program, click the Scan folder for DICOM files button in the upper left corner and select this folder. You can read more about how the program works.

The best software for MAC-OS is Osirix. You can download the free desktop version. The iPhone and iPad version of Osirix is ​​available from the Apple Store or .

Often an MRI or CT is written to disk already with a viewer program. In this case, you do not need to disable autorun on your computer, and the viewer will start automatically. The disadvantage of such programs is that they are usually not very convenient to use. Therefore, we advise you to install Radiant anyway.

Remember that it does not even exclude the medical diagnosis, because the reliability of the diagnosis directly depends on the doctor's ability to decipher the pictures. Therefore, in case of doubts about the diagnosis, doctors recommend getting a Second Opinion - a transcript of an MRI or CT scan from an expert-level radiologist in order to confirm or refute the diagnosis, as well as a more accurate and detailed description of the images. Russia has the National Teleradiological Network - a remote consultation service, through which anyone can contact leading diagnosticians from Moscow or St. Petersburg, send them research files and receive a qualified description. This consultation is of particular importance in oncological, neurological and other complex diseases.

If your computer has antivirus program can scan all files on the computer, as well as each file individually. You can scan any file by right-clicking on the file and selecting the appropriate option to scan the file for viruses.

For example, in this figure, file my-file.dcm, then you need to right-click on this file, and in the file menu select the option "scan with AVG". Selecting this option will open AVG Antivirus and scan the file for viruses.

Sometimes an error can result from incorrect software installation, which may be due to a problem that occurred during the installation process. It may interfere with your operating system associate your DCM file with the correct software application, influencing the so-called "file extension associations".

Sometimes simple reinstalling adobe photoshop can solve your problem by properly linking DCM with Adobe Photoshop. In other cases, file association problems may result from bad software programming developer, and you may need to contact the developer for further assistance.

Advice: Try updating Adobe Photoshop to the latest version to make sure you have the latest patches and updates.

This may seem too obvious, but often the DCM file itself may be causing the problem. If you received a file via an email attachment or downloaded it from a website and the download process was interrupted (for example, by a power outage or other reason), the file may be corrupted. If possible, try getting a fresh copy of the DCM file and try opening it again.

Carefully: A corrupted file can cause collateral damage to previous or pre-existing malware on your PC, so it's important to keep your computer up to date with an up-to-date antivirus.

If your DCM file associated with the hardware on your computer to open the file you may need update device drivers associated with this equipment.

This problem usually associated with media file types, which depend on the successful opening of the hardware inside the computer, for example, sound card or video card. For example, if you are trying to open an audio file but cannot open it, you may need to update sound card drivers.

Advice: If when you try to open a DCM file you receive .SYS file related error message, the problem could probably be associated with corrupted or outdated device drivers that need to be updated. This process can be facilitated by using driver update software such as DriverDoc.

If the steps didn't solve the problem and you are still having problems opening DCM files, this may be due to lack of available system resources. Some versions of DCM files may require a significant amount of resources (eg. memory/RAM, processing power) to open properly on your computer. This problem is quite common if you are using fairly old computer hardware and a much newer operating system at the same time.

This problem can occur when the computer is having a hard time completing a task because the operating system (and other services running in the background) can consume too many resources to open DCM file. Try closing all applications on your PC before opening DICOM Image File Format. By freeing up all available resources on your computer, you will ensure the best conditions for trying to open the DCM file.

If you completed all the above steps and your DCM file still won't open, you may need to run hardware upgrade. In most cases, even when using older hardware versions, the processing power can still be more than enough for most user applications (unless you're doing a lot of CPU-intensive work like 3D rendering, financial/science modeling, or intensive multimedia work) . In this way, it is likely that your computer does not have enough memory(more commonly referred to as "RAM", or RAM) to perform the task of opening a file.