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I got a CD from the hospital that is a head CD scan.

I am completely new to medical imaging. What I would like to do perform a volume rendering of the CT scan.

It is in DICOMDIR format. How and where would I start?

From messing about with various tools I get the feeling that I need to extract each series into DICOM format. Is this correct and if so how would I do it?

Cheers,

Richard

A: 

I believe ImageJ will open any of the files in the DICOMDIR for you. I'm not entirely sure it can open the entire study from the DICOMDIR, but I'm fairly certain it will handle any individual files you need to open. It should also offer the option to export the images to various other formats. If you need more info, feel free to post a comment.

md5sum
Yes I currently use imageJ. I tried using it for volume/surface rendering, but it runs out of memory. I've also realised that it takes a whole lot more than just exporting files in a different format and feeding them into a piece of software to get a 3d render.
A: 

If you have a mac try OsiriX - it's free, open source and will do everything you need and more. If you don't, and this is a one time thing, you could always sign up for a free demo of a commercial grade DICOM viewer. Medical image viewing software is insanely expensive and would be impossible to sell without demos. Just claim to be working for a clinician and you'll have no problem getting working software.

lazyconfabulator
Yep I've used OsiriX on a mac in vmware. It's great. Unfortunately it's only a viewer not a renderer. After some more research, I think in order to create proper 3d render you would need a bit of training first.
Osirix can produce some really beautiful renders. http://www.osirix-viewer.com/OsiriX-GUI/VolumeRendering-02.jpg .. I had no formal training, but after playing for several minutes I was able to produce really similar images.
lazyconfabulator