Imaging

Open Imaging in the sidebar, under Resources. The empty page offers three ways in:

• Drag the disc, the folder or the files onto the page.
• Press Choose folder and pick the whole CD or USB stick. healcraft finds the images in it by itself.
• Press Choose files for single images or a .zip.

healcraft counts the files as it reads them, then opens the first study on its first series. Mammograms open straight on the four standard views. Photos and video clips (JPG, PNG, MP4 and the like) open too, grouped as a study called Images. Files that cannot be read are counted at the bottom of the study list.

No DICOM images found means none of the files were images healcraft can read: check that you picked the right folder. If the browser cannot show medical images at all, the page says so; an up-to-date Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari can.

The Studies list on the left shows each open study: the patient’s name, ID and date of birth, the study date, the type (CT, MR and so on) and the hospital. Click a study to open it. Its series appear under it as small pictures, each with its number of images.

• Click a series to show it in the active pane, or drag it onto any pane.
• Scroll through the images with the mouse wheel, the Up and Down arrow keys, or the slider along the edge of the pane. The top right corner shows which image you are on.
• One pane, Two panes and Four panes, at the left of the toolbar, put series side by side; new panes fill with the next series. Click a pane to make it the active one, and double-click it to enlarge it (double-click again to go back).
• With more than one pane, Link scrolling moves the panes together and Link window/level gives them the same brightness and contrast.
• The + beside Studies opens another study alongside, for example last year’s. The X on a study closes it. The disc or folder itself is never changed.

The corners of the image show the patient and the study date, the series and the image number, the brightness and contrast (W and L) with the zoom, and the side and view where the study has them.

The toolbar above the images groups the tools under Layout, Navigate, Measure and Mark. Point at a button to see its name and its key. The tool you choose works with the left mouse button. Whatever the tool, the wheel scrolls, dragging with the right button zooms, and dragging with the middle button (the wheel) moves the image.

• The Up and Down arrows, or Page Up and Page Down, step one image.
• Click a measurement or a mark to select it. Delete or Backspace removes it; Esc stops one you are still drawing.
• ⌘Z, or Ctrl+Z on Windows, is Undo for measurements and marks. ⇧⌘Z, or Ctrl+Y, is Redo.
• Rotate 90° and Flip horizontally have no key.
• Clear annotations (the eraser) removes the marks On this image, or, after asking, All annotations in the study…. Snapshots already taken keep theirs.

Choose Length, Angle or Area and draw on the image. The result stays beside the drawing, and you can drag its ends to adjust it. CT, MR, X-rays and most other scans carry their own scale, so lengths read in millimetres.

A photo or a scanned picture has no scale, so it measures in pixels (px) until you calibrate it against a ruler visible in the picture:

1. Choose Calibrate in the Measure group.
2. Draw a line along the ruler on the image, between two marks a known distance apart.
3. Type how long that line really is and choose mm or cm. To use the same scale for the whole series, tick the box for all the images of the series.
4. Press Calibrate. healcraft switches to Length, ready to measure.

A calibrated image shows Calibrated in amber at its bottom left, a reminder that its millimetres come from your line and not from the scanner. Calibrate is greyed out on images that already measure in mm, and it does not work on the three planes.

3 planes (M) rebuilds a CT or MR series into axial, sagittal and coronal views side by side. Building takes a moment and shows its progress. When a series cannot be rebuilt, for example because it has too few slices, the button is grey and pointing at it tells you why.

• Crosshairs (C) shows the same point in all three views.
• Slab makes each view thicker: MIP, MinIP or Average, with the thickness in millimetres beside it.
• 3D view (3) adds a fourth pane with a 3D picture. Choose the Rendering (such as Bone, Soft tissue or Lung), use the Threshold slider to show more or less, and turn on Cut at the planes to cut the picture where the views are. Drag to turn it.
• The Enlarge button on each view gives it the whole viewer, and Back to all panes returns. Press 3 planes again to go back to the usual panes.

A snapshot is a picture of the active pane as you see it, with its measurements and marks. Press Snapshot at the right end of the toolbar, or S. The Snapshots tray opens on the right and fills as you go, up to 12 per report.

• Each snapshot gets a caption, such as the series and the image number, which you can change.
• Drag snapshots to change their order. The X removes one.

1. Press Create report under the snapshots.
2. Under Patient, pick the patient. healcraft suggests the patients who match the study and says why: AMKA, Name + birth date or Name. You can also search, or press New patient to add one with the details already filled in from the study.
3. Check the report’s Type and Date (it starts on the study date), and the Template and Signed by where the practice has them.
4. Press Create with 3 images (the number is how many snapshots you took).

healcraft opens the patient’s chart on the new report, as a draft, with the images in it. The study stays open in Imaging, marked In report.

To add images to a draft report that already exists, open it and press Add images from a study (or Add images) below it. Imaging opens with a line at the top naming the report, and the button under the snapshots becomes, for example, Add 3 images to report. Back to report returns without adding. A report that has been issued takes no more images.

• A phone or tablet cannot open a folder. Press Choose files or a .zip and pick the study’s images, or the .zip they came in, from Files. A very large .zip may be more than the device can hold open, and healcraft tells you so.
• On a tablet, the toolbar has Scroll in place of Pan and Zoom: one finger scrolls the images, and two fingers pinch to zoom and move the image, whatever tool is on.
• A phone shows one pane with a row of large buttons beside it (below it when upright, at the side when turned): Scroll, Window, Measure, Mark, Undo, More and Snapshot. More holds the rest: presets, invert, rotate, flip, reset, 3 planes, 3D view, redo and clearing marks.
• On a phone, the buttons at the top open the Studies list and the Snapshots, each with its count.
• On a phone, Imaging is under More.

healcraft reads a study from the disc or folder on the computer, tablet or phone in front of you. The images are never uploaded and nothing of the study is stored in healcraft. The only things saved are the snapshots you put into a report.

• You can leave Imaging and come back: the studies, the image you were on, your measurements and your snapshots are all still there, as long as the browser tab stays open. A dot beside Imaging in the sidebar means a study is open; a number means snapshots are waiting for a report.
• Closing the tab or signing out ends the reading. To read the study again later, open the disc again.
• While snapshots are waiting, the browser asks before you reload or close the tab.
• Closing a study that has snapshots asks first, because its snapshots are thrown away.