Image Data Loading

When loading images from the database the interface shown below allows searching for studies according to different criteria such as study date, patient demographics, modality, a project name or diagnosis.

DB Loading

The layout can be organized vertically (as illustrated above), or horizontally with the Series tab stacked behind the Patients tab. This may be an advantage if patients tend to have many image series. The layout is switched by the option button

DB Layout Switch

The Flat series is another arrangement which lists all image series in a single list.

Loading Overview

The uppermost section represents the filtering options. Using filtering in large databases is recommended, because it substantially reduces the response time. Below the filters, the list of Patients is shown which match the current selection criteria. When one of these patients is selected, his image series available in the database are updated in the Series list section. One or several image series can be selected and brought into the Selected for loading area by the Add to SELECTED button or by a double-click at a series. On the right side there is a mini viewer to verify the image contents before actually loading the whole data set. If the View image box is checked, the central slice image is displayed as soon as a series is selected. Finally, by activating the Open button, all series in the Selected for loading area are loaded into the PMOD tool.

Note that multi-series selection depends on the context. If only a single series is expected, double-clicking at the series will immediately start image loading.

User Interface Elements for Filtering

First of all the database to be searched must be selected with the selection in the upper right, Pmod in the example above. The basic filtering options include the following elements.

Name	Patient name, starting with the last name. The wildcard * can be used as a replacement for arbitrary sub-strings.
Patient ID	The patient ID filter, also supporting wildcards.
Date of Birth	The filters for the birth date include an exact date, or a date range available from the selection list. These specifications apply for all other filter dates.
Modify Date	A date/time is maintained in the database recording when the data of the patients was modified the last time by adding an image series or by changing the patient information. For example, setting the field to Last Week only shows patients modified in the last seven days.
SQ	Means Save Query. If this button is enabled, the same filter settings will be applied when database loading is opened again.
	This button resets the filter settings by removing all specifications.
,	Toggle button to enable/disable automatic refreshing after changing a filter element
	The refresh button to apply the query to the database potentially updated in the meantime, or after changing the filter and disabled automatic refreshing.

There is an extended filtering capability available on the second sub-tab

Extended Filtering

containing several new elements:

Study Description	Filtering of text appearing in the study description. The * wildcard is supported.
Series Description	Filtering of text appearing in the series description. The * wildcard is supported.
ALL DATA TYPES	This selection lists all available data types in PMOD such as images, VOIs, etc. Setting this field to VOI Templates for example will only list patients who have a VOI definition attached to one of the image series.
Last Use	A date/time is maintained in the database when data of the patients was accessed the last time. This information is listed for each database object. Selecting a date range allows browsing the database content based on a least recently used criterion.
nz	Filter to search for studies with a certain number of slices, including the criteria For instance, planar only studies could be looked for by setting nz = 1.
nv	Filter to search for studies with a certain number of dynamic frames. For instance nv > 1 will only list dynamic series.
Locked	If the box is checked, only patients who have a Locked flag are listed.
Modality	A selection to restrict the search to a specific modality, eg. to PT (PET) as in the example. Multiple modalities can be searched for at once.
Prj	Patients can be assigned to a Project. The selection allows selecting from one of the available project names.
Dgn	Similarly, patients can be given a Diagnosis. The selection allows selecting from the available diagnosis names.
	If this button is enabled, only patients are listed who have been saved using the database archive procedure.
or	Every time data is saved in the database, the PMOD name of the user who saved is recorded with the data. This button allows restricting the search to the PMOD user currently logged in (button out), or to show data of all users (button in).

Patient Operations

When a patient has been selected from the list, a row of buttons becomes active.

Set as SELECTED	Moves all series of the patient to the Selected for loading area.
Edit Patient	Opens a dialog for editing the patient demographic data. The INTERFILE button allows importing this information from a file in the Interfile format. Note that the information in the DICOM object is not modified, just the database entries. However, when loading the images, the information in the database overrides the DICOM information, and when the data is saved again, it will contain the changed information in the file.
Set Project \| Locked	Allows defining three attributes for a patient: A Project name can be entered, or if it already exists, selected from a list. Similarly, a Diagnosis can be specified, and the patient be Locked to prevent erroneous deleting.
Delete Patient(s)	Delete the patients selected in the list.
Create new Patient	Create a new patient in the database, to whom information can be attached if there is no image series in the database.
Merge	Sometimes several entries are created for a single patient because of a mismatch in the name/ID information. To merge such entries, select all of them in the list (with `CTRL+Click`) and activate the Merge button. As a result all series end up under a single patient entry.

Series Operations

When a series of the current patient is selected, the row of buttons below the list becomes active.

Add to SELECTED	Moves the selected series of the patient to the Selected for loading area.
Add All to SELECTED	Moves all series of the patient to the Selected for loading area.
Edit Series	Opens a dialog for editing the series information Again, the INTERFILE button allows importing this information from a file in the Interfile format.
Set Project \| Locked	Brings up the same dialog as on the patient level to define project, diagnosis and locking on the series level.
Delete Serie(s)	Delete the series selected in the list.
DICOM	Inspect the attributes of the selected series in a DICOM browser.
	Search JPEG or TIFF captures stored in the database. They can be opened in a viewer.
	Comment editor. Allows creating a comment for the selected image series. existing comments can be edited or read.
	Buttons allowing to step from patient to patient

Selected for Loading Area

In most situations more than one series (from the same or different patients) can be added to the loading area, but there are exceptions where only a single series is allowed. The order in the list is relevant for the loading order. This is most important for the fusion tool because the first series will serve as the reference. To change the sorting order just click one of the column headers.

As soon as there are series in this area, the row of buttons below the list becomes active.

Open	Starts loading the image series. If the Direct loading box to the right is checked, the images are loaded without intervening dialog, and without any operations. Otherwise the dialog for specifying pre-processing options is shown. If the Append study(s) flag is on (), the selected series will be loaded as additional images to the tool, otherwise the tool will be cleared before loading.
Replicate	Copy the selected series including components to another database which can be selected in the appearing dialog window.
Export	Export the series in the list from the database to a directory. The export dialog optionally allows anonymizing the images, generating a DICOMDIR file and compressing the whole data into a zip archive.
DICOM C-STORE	This button allows sending the selected series directly to a DICOM server without first loading them into an image area. This has the advantage that no modifications are done to the original DICOM objects. In contrast, when loading the images and sending them to a DICOM server, some changes are applied to the DICOM attributes.
Remove	Removes the selected series from the selected for loading area, but does not delete from the database.
Remove All	Clears the Selected for loading area.

DICOM Operations

DICOM Q/R to
Database

This button underneath the image display area starts the dialog for the DICOM Query/Retrieve functionality.

Load from File System

Load from File(s) by Autodetect	This button allows loading image data from outside the database. Basically, it is an Autodetect loading, so the user can just browse to any directory and select any type of image file. PMOD will detect its file format and perform the loading operation.
Load DICOM File(s)	This button serves loading DICOM images. The difference with the Autodetect loading is that the user has to select a directory, not a file. PMOD then scans the whole directory for DICOM files and lists them in the loading dialog. If a DICOMDIR file is found, it has precedence over the DICOM files in the same directory.