Viewing and manipulating medical images such as CBCT, CT or MRI scans on your laptop or tablet may be useful, but limited by licensing or incompatible operating systems. There are many free DICOM* viewers that operate on either Apple MacOS or Microsoft Windows, but which viewer to choose can be challenging.
Listed below are the viewers that I recommend, but please be sure to download the correct version for your operating system and if 32-bit or 64-bit architecture; most new computers use 64-bit architecture.
Recommended Microsoft Windows DICOM image viewers:
1. RadiAnt is simple, easy to use and very fast. It’s downloaded as a single compact application with an installer size of just 2 MB, and can run directly from a USB memory stick. More useful information can be viewed on YouTube.
2. Navegatium is simple, very basic, and includes a touch interface that works well with tablets. It requires Windows 10/8.1. More information on YouTube.
3. ITK-SNAP is an open source software application funded by an NIH grant. It allows the user to manually and automatically delineate anatomical regions of interest, also called image segmentation. More information on YouTube.
Recommended Apple MacOS DICOM image viewers:
1. Horos is a 64-bit, open source software written by OsiriX software experts. A discussion and more information can be viewed on YouTube.
2. ITK-SNAP is an open source software application funded by an NIH grant. It allows the user to manually and automatically delineate anatomical regions of interest, also called image segmentation. More information on YouTube.
Useful DICOM Editor, research only: RSNA/MIRC (Radiologic Society of North America/Medical Image Resource Center) DICOM Editor/Anonymizer Tool
Link to RSNA MIRC DicomEditor-installer.jar
Useful DICOM viewer and editor, research only: Medical Image Processing, Analysis and Visualization (MIPAV), NIH
Link to MIPAV pubwiki
Link to using MIPAV Anonymize
*DICOM (Digital Imaging and COmmunications in Medicine) is an international standard file format and network communications protocol developed by the American College of Radiology (ACR) specifically for medical imaging.