Reconstruct CT Scans for Human Lumbar Spine

Hello, I have a project where I have 595 CT scans (in DICOM files) which are 2D images of a specific section of the spine. Each image has an X,Y,Z coordinate and grayscale value of all the pixels. I need to reconstruct this so that I can see the saggittal and coronal views of the spine. Any help with this will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

[Cris LaPierre]

The simplest way is to use the dicom browser app and export the result to the volume viewer app.

[John Smith]

While that does help me out, is there anyway to save all the photos that I see on a specific axis (such as XY slice, XZ Slice, or YZ slice)?

[Cris LaPierre]

The dicom browser app can export the data to the workspace. That creates a 4D matrix. You can convert that to 3D using squeeze.

V=squeeze(V);

All slices you see are stored in this 3D matrix. If you want to view a particular slice, just use indexing to extract the corresponding 2D slice from the volume. For example, in my mri data

XY = v(:,:,z);
XZ = squeeze(v(m,:,:));
YZ = squeeze(v(:,n,:));

[John Smith]

In your code, what do the variables l, m, and n represent?

[Cris LaPierre]

Sorry, l was a typo. I have removed it. For my data, V is a 384x348x30 matrix.

To extract a slice, I need to extract all the data along a particular dimension. I do this by specifying that dimension as either a particular row (m), column (n), or sheet (z).

[John Smith]

Once you have XY, XZ, and YZ set, how do you get the photo?

[Cris LaPierre]

There are a number of ways to view images in MATLAB. Perhaps try imagesc?

You might also find this page helpful:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/images/exploring-slices-from-a-3-dimensional-mri-data-set.html