Is there any benefit for not using dicom images for processing in matlab???

Dear friend, I'm on a project in which some processing work of some MR images are needed. Is there any advantage of not using dicom image?? I mean why should i convert this dicom image???

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

DICOM images contain useful meta-data such as pixel sizes and slice spacing.

On the other hand, accessing DICOM image files can be painfully slow, and the code is not nearly as readable as a simple imread().

This suggests a potential compromise: if you are going to be reading the same image numerous times, then convert the image once and store it. You may wish to do that storage as part of a structure into which you have written the DICOM parameters that are of interest to you.

[Abu Thoppan]

When i convert it to any format will there be any data loss????

[Brett Shoelson]

Walter, Why is DICOMREAD so much less readable than IMREAD?

[Walter Roberson]

Dealing with all those DICOM parameters and the DICOM dictionary is a pain in the fundament. Since you have the meta-data there, you are morally obliged to _use_ it instead of just hard-coding assumptions about image sizes.

If you use the Mathworks site search feature for dicomread then the first 14 entries are bug reports :( Which doesn't surprise me, as DICOM storage is complex internally, with a variety of internal file formats.