How to use dcmcjpeg to convert DICOM to JPEG?

Question

The dcmcjpeg tool from the dcmtk package (sudo apt-get install dcmtk) is supposed to convert DICOM image files to JPEG.

But I suspect it still wraps the image in a DICOM container, because when I try, I get this:

> file 000010.*
000010.dcm: DICOM medical imaging data

> md5sum 000010.*
a64dee7fa9c9fb383c9aec833006f161  000010.dcm

> dcmcjpeg --verbose --encode-extended --quality 75 --huffman-optimize --bits-force-8 --monochrome 000010.dcm 000010.jpg
I: reading input file 000010.dcm
I: Convert DICOM file to compressed transfer syntax
I: Output transfer syntax JPEG Extended, Process 2+4 can be written
I: creating output file 000010.jpg
I: conversion successful

> file 000010.*
000010.dcm: DICOM medical imaging data
000010.jpg: DICOM medical imaging data

> md5sum 000010.*
a64dee7fa9c9fb383c9aec833006f161  000010.dcm
c3019b54640179805ab3912414b97936  000010.jpg

How can I fully extract the image from a DICOM file and convert it to a common format such as JPEG or PNG?

Answer 1

Please use the tool dcmj2pnm:

This tool converts DICOM images to PGM/PPM, PNG, TIFF, JPEG or BMP

Here is a usage sample: dcmj2pnm --write-jpeg --min-max-window ST1-SE1.dcm foot-xray.jpg

Use the option " --min-max-window" for calculating the VOI window using min-max algorithm

HTH