Scanning X-Rays for Veterinary Diagnostic Consultations

[keith2468]

Can anyone point me to a recent discussion or article on scanning x-rays for e-mailing for veterinary diagnostic consultative purposes?

I have been searching around google this afternoon, and could not find anything written in the past year, and the older articles didn?t end with what the authors felt were satisfactory solutions for diagnostic purposes.

The more hopeful articles did mention SilverFast as the software to use, which is why I?m posting the question here.

Higher quality is required for diagnosis than for publishing. With diagnosis, you want to send the consultant as perfect and untouched an image as you can. With publishing, you know what is important in the image and can manipulate the image to emphasis those important aspects.

The issue with veterinary diagnosis is that the budget is a lot more limited than in human medicine. That is, a $2,000+ scanner/software solution is too expensive, and a $15,000 scanner is completely unfeasible.

What is desired is something cheaper than $2,000, that can be connected to existing office PCs, that doesn?t require a course to operate, and that can handle images up to say 8-1/2 x 14 inches (20cm x 30cm). Larger would be better though.

Ordinary transparency adapters are seldom large enough, but apparently work fine for small images like teeth.

Shading is critical. From what I?ve read, putting custom-made light tables above scanners hasn?t been satisfactory.

Surprisingly, even taking photos from x-ray viewers is reportedly satisfactory. There is uneven light in the viewers, which the human eye can adjust for only when looking at the image first hand. So even x-ray viewers don?t provide sufficiently accurate shading.

Any advise or a direction to look in would be appreciated.

Here are the most hopeful links I've found so far:

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fet ... _id=000uWH

http://isb.ri.ccf.org/biomch-l/archives ... 00068.html

[geomcnamara]

Hi Kieth,

I use a PFU ProImager 9600 scanner at 1200 dpi for Faxitron X-rays of mice (clinical mammography film). These are scanned with SilverFast Ai 5.5 at 16-bits into Adobe Photoshop 6.0. I then use Levels to adjust gamma (usually to 3.0) and white/black range. The original list price of this PFU was $5000, I bought mine as a discontinued model from a dealer for $600. The critical feature of the PFU scanners is that they have a full 8.5x11" transparency illuminator lid. A PFU Japan link is on the silverfast.com -> Company -> Partners page or see http://pfu.co.jp/e_sales/scanner/silve.html

Check the www or local dealers for someone who carries PFU scanners. The keys are full size transparency adapter and scanning to 16-bit.

Can anyone point me to a recent discussion or article on scanning x-rays for e-mailing for veterinary diagnostic consultative purposes?

I have been searching around google this afternoon, and could not find anything written in the past year, and the older articles didn?t end with what the authors felt were satisfactory solutions for diagnostic purposes.

The more hopeful articles did mention SilverFast as the software to use, which is why I?m posting the question here.

Higher quality is required for diagnosis than for publishing. With diagnosis, you want to send the consultant as perfect and untouched an image as you can. With publishing, you know what is important in the image and can manipulate the image to emphasis those important aspects.

The issue with veterinary diagnosis is that the budget is a lot more limited than in human medicine. That is, a $2,000+ scanner/software solution is too expensive, and a $15,000 scanner is completely unfeasible.

What is desired is something cheaper than $2,000, that can be connected to existing office PCs, that doesn?t require a course to operate, and that can handle images up to say 8-1/2 x 14 inches (20cm x 30cm). Larger would be better though.

Ordinary transparency adapters are seldom large enough, but apparently work fine for small images like teeth.

Shading is critical. From what I?ve read, putting custom-made light tables above scanners hasn?t been satisfactory.

Surprisingly, even taking photos from x-ray viewers is reportedly satisfactory. There is uneven light in the viewers, which the human eye can adjust for only when looking at the image first hand. So even x-ray viewers don?t provide sufficiently accurate shading.

Any advise or a direction to look in would be appreciated.

Here are the most hopeful links I've found so far:

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fet ... _id=000uWH

http://isb.ri.ccf.org/biomch-l/archives ... 00068.html

[keith2468]

Thanks George