[Mristudio-users] New to the program

[Tapan Jani]

Hello all,

I've tried sending a couple of e-mails to the DtiStudio support staff, but
they have yet to get back to me. While waiting for their reply, I was
wondering if anyone in this newsletter would be able to answer my questions.
Below, I have copy-pasted both my e-mails. I apologize for the length, I got
a little carried away in my curiosity.

If anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much,
Tapan Jani

tjani2 at uic.edu

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Support Team,

I am writing you in reference to your program DTI Studio. Let me begin by
stating that I am very new to diffusion tensor imaging, and am trying to use
your program as a stepping stone into that field of study. For the record, I
am a research assistant in a lab that is registered on your website (
dtistudio.org) under the username slee56.

I write to you with only a few hours of experience with the program under my
belt. The manual which you posted alongside the software is helpful in
knowing how to open files and view them. For the purposes of learning how
the program works, I downloaded the data set
01_020729_31.rec<https://www.mristudio.org/download/data/dti/01/020729/DTI/31/01_020729_31.rec>.
Initially, I was able to boot up the program and load the data set via file
-> dtimapping. Using the gradient posted next to the data set on your demo
data database, and leaving all other settings as they were, I was able to
bring up the axial, sagittal, coronal, and 3-d views of the .rec file. Next,
under the dtimap tab, I clicked "tensor, color map, etc." to come up with
the different maps. Once this was completed, I was able to view the
different maps, but this is where my problems began.

As I stated earlier, I am very new to this field, and thus am at a loss when
it comes to actually *interpreting the data*.

For this reason, I am contacting you to ask whether you have some
documentation on how to "read" all the various DTI maps that this program is
capable of creating, along with a glossary which explains every term used in
the program. For me to create maps and not know what I am looking at
presents a problem that, hopefully, you can help me with. I have looked
through the user manual that is on your webpage, and while it is very
helpful in utilizing the program itself, it does not help me interpret the
images. For example, I am completely unaware how to find within what area of
the brain the diffusion is higher or lower than normal, or even know what
normal is for that matter.

Finally, I was wondering if you could tell me that after creating the
"tensor, color maps etc," where I can view the data this calculates, and
what those figures mean.

Also, just as a side note, under the dtimap whenever I click any of the
buttons under "calculation," 40% of the time it causes the program to
severely stall and/or crash altogether.

I really appreciate your help in this matter, and hope to soon become
knowledgeable in this area with your aid. So if there is some documentation
explaining every single in and out of what DTI images are, show, and help
with, it would be incredibly useful to me.



Thank you for your time,



Tapan Jani



Tjani2 at uic.edu

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Support Team,

This is the second e-mail that I am writing to you, and not being sure
whether or not my first e-mail reached you, I've attached it below. This
e-mail, however, is in reference to converting DICOM images to REC images. I
was able to follow the user manual to perform the actual conversion,
however, when I load the newly created REC, I am unable to perform any of
the mapping functions. Does anyone know why this is happening?

Thank you for your time, I hope to hear from you soon in regards to this
e-mail and the one attached below.


Tapan Jani

tjani2 at uic.edu
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.mristudio.org/pipermail/mristudio-users/attachments/20080709/662530a5/attachment.html