Sante DICOM Viewer Mac

The user interface

When the program starts, it creates two windows: The Frames/Series/MPR window that displays the images of the loaded files, and the Database/Network window that allows the user to work with the Built-in database and to query/retrieve files from the DICOM network.

The Frames/Series/MPR window	The Database/Network window

The user can alternate the main window from Frame/Series/MPR to Database/Network windows and vice versa, with the toolbar buttons in the upper right corner of the two windows.

The main window

The user interface is divided in 7 parts:
1. The menu bar
2. The toolbar
3. The view switch button
4. The series pane
5. The main window
6. The Frames/Series/MPR Mode selection tab
7. The frame selection slider

The program works with DICOM series. Once the user opens a single file, the program creates a series with this file in the memory and works with this single-file series. Once the user opens a study, the program works with all the series of this study. All the loaded series are displayed in the series pane (4) as thumbnails. The user can display a loaded series in the main window by double-clicking its thumbnail in the series pane (4), or by clicking the green arrow in the upper-left corner of the thumbnail.

Series that have been loaded in the main window have blue color, and series that have not been loaded in the main window have yellow color. The active series has magenta color.

The user can close a series by clicking the red X symbol in the upper-right corner of the thumbnail.

The main window (5) is divided in tiles and it has five modes:
The "Frame Mode", that displays in its tiles the frames of the same series (the active series). The user can select the number of the tiles with the Tiles Layout menu command. The "Series Mode", that displays in its tiles all the loaded in the main window series. The user can select the number of the tiles with the Tiles Layout menu command. The active series is displayed in the "Series Mode" with a red rectangle around its tile (5). The user can select the active series by clicking its tile in the "Series Mode", or by single-clicking its thumbnail in the series pane. If a series is loaded in the main window, in the upper-left corner of its thumbnail is displayed the number of its "Series Mode" tile. If the user press the right mouse button in a "Series Mode" tile, a pop-up menu appears and lets the user empty the tile, empty all tiles, change the series tile, load another series to this tile and close the series that is loaded in this tile. This menu is not available in the "Frames Mode".

The "MPR Mode" that displays the scout image/localizer, the axial volume of the series and the volumes of the coronal and sagittal reconstructions of the series.

The "Database Mode" that allows the user to query and retrieve series and studies from the local database.

The "Network Mode" that allows the user to query and retrieve series and studies from remote PACS servers.

1. Menu bar
The menu bar contains the commands of the program.

2. Toolbars
The toolbars provide shortcut buttons for the most useful commands of the program.

3. View switch button
This toolbar button alternates the main window from Frame/Series/MPR to Database/Network windows and vice versa.

4. Series Pane
This pane displays thumbnails of the open series. Every series thumbnail has the patient name, the series description and the number of frames of the series.

5. Main window
The main window is the working area of the user. The main window displays the frames of the active series (Frame mode), or one frame of all the loaded series (Series mode).
The user can select the mode of the main window from the Frames/Series selection tab.
Every mode can have different number of tiles, and the user can select the number of tiles with the Tiles Layout menu command.

6. Frames/Series/MPR selection tab
If the tab "Frames" is selected the main window displays the frames of the active series (Frame Mode).
If the tab "Series" is selected the main window displays all the loaded series (Series Mode).
If the tab "MPR" is selected the main window displays the scout image/localizer and the axial/coronal/sagittal volumes of the series (MPR Mode).

7. Frame selection slider
If the active series has many frames, this slider lets the user select the active frame. Otherwise is disabled.

The main window in the frame mode (one tile)

The main window in the frame mode (six tiles): Displays six frames of the active series. The number of the tiles is selectable by the user. The active frame has a red rectangle around its tile.

The main window in the series mode (six tiles): Displays four different series. The number of the tiles is selectable by the user. The active series has a red rectangle around its tile.