4 ms·
Regardless of your stand on OSS & proprietary software, most of the world runs on Windows. The idea that reading a doc file required "..programming tools to hac
by sami36 14y ago
Regardless of your stand on OSS & proprietary software, most of the world runs on Windows. The idea that reading a doc file required "..programming tools to hack the files and make them open...." is hyperbole. If you have enough tech skills to install linux, you sure know how to find a way to read docx files. To most people, reading an open doc format would actually represent more of a challenge.
- DanBC 14y agoHe's not talking about word processor files, but about data from other stuff. How do people open XRays or MRI scans or etc etc? (And even word processors have problems when trying to open some obsolete format.)
- sami36 14y agoI understand, but there are no open standards for MRI scans. These applications were not meant for wide consumption although I would agree with you that the device manufacturers should at least provide a way to export that data in a more consumer friendly fashion (JPEG, H.264 video files.) Even better, hospitals should act as a proxy advocating for patients rights & demand export options during the procurement process.
- bugsbunnyak 14y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DICOM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DICOM Essentially all modern medical scanners export data in this format. This fantastic site will let you view (after upload) DICOM images in a web browser: http://slicedrop.com/ http://slicedrop.com/ There are a number of accessible (ie not clinical radiology priced) viewers available, the best of the lot for general use being Osirix [1] (OS X only), and ClearCanvas [2] (Windows only). Ginkgo CADx [3] and Mint viewer [4] are also good, and both cross-platform. There are several well-regard open-source libraries for DICOM: gdcm [5] and DCMTK [6]. Widely used open-source medical image visualization SDKs with DICOM support include MITK [7] and 3D Slicer [8] (the afore-mentioned ClearCanvas is also an SDK in some sense). [edit: formatting and add link] 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OsiriX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OsiriX 2. http://www.clearcanvas.ca/dnn/ http://www.clearcanvas.ca/dnn/ 3. http://ginkgo-cadx.com/en/ http://ginkgo-cadx.com/en/ 4. http://www.mint-medical.de/ http://www.mint-medical.de/ 5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDCM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDCM 6. http://dicom.offis.de/dcmtk.php.en http://dicom.offis.de/dcmtk.php.en 7. http://www.mitk.org/ http://www.mitk.org/ 8. http://www.slicer.org http://www.slicer.org
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]