MediCal LE Installation & User Manual
B410015 - 02 November 2004 www.barco.
Introduction Introduction MediCal LE is a user-friendly and efficient tool for Q/A check and conformance calibration of medical displays and display systems. With MediCal LE you can: • Perform Q/A checks observing many kinds of test patterns. See § “Performing quality checks with test patterns” • Calibrate the displays with the delivered optical sensor. See § “Calibrating displays” • Select from a list of display functions. See § “Options” • Choose to work calibrated or uncalibrated.
Installation Installation MediCal LE installation Minimum System requirements • Color or grayscale imaging board having gamma access • Operating system: Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional • Memory: 64 MByte • Free disk space: 15 MByte Before installing MediCal LE 1. You must have Administrator privileges to install the software. 2. If there are older versions of MediCal LE installed on the PC, remove them. Please refer to the § “Uninstalling MediCal LE”, further in this chapter.
Installation 5. Click on the Next> button. 6. Read the License agreement on the screen very carefully. Scroll down to read the complete text. 7. Click on Yes if you agree with the License agreement and wish to continue with the installation. 8. A window appears, indicating the directory where MediCal LE is going to be installed. Click on the Browse... button if you want to change this directory. Click on the Next> button to continue. 9.
Installation Optical sensor connection Supported sensors: MediCal LE 1.03 supports 2 types of sensors. When sold as full package, MediCal LE 1.03 comes with the circular-shaped Barco LCD sensor. MediCal LE 1.03 also supports the sensor that came with previous versions of MediCal LE (an oval sensor). The Barco LCD sensor delivered with MediCal LE 1.03 comes with 2 different sensor head adapters: An adapter covered with felt and an adapter with suction cups.
Installation Figure 1: Head adapter removal 3. Pull the adapter from the sensor. To apply the head adapter to the sensor: 1. Take the sensor with its “eye” pointing towards you. 2. Put the head adapter on the sensor. 3. Turn the sensor head adapter in clockwise sense. To connect the sensor: 1. Put the MediCal LE CD-ROM in the CD-ROM drive. A screen will appear, but do NOT click on any button. 2. Plug the sensor in one of the USB connectors of your PC. 3.
Installation To use the sensor: The Barco LCD sensor, standard delivered with MediCal LE 1.03, is provided with a metal counterweight around the sensor cable. Thanks to this counterweight, you can let the sensor cable hang over the top of the display during calibration or measurement. Figure 2: Counterweight Attention: When using the sensor with the felt-covered head adapter, take care that no light can enter between the edge of the adapter and the screen surface.
Starting MediCal LE Starting MediCal LE After installing MediCal LE, its icon appears in the System Tray in the Task Bar. The icon appears crossed out in case the display(s) are not calibrated yet. This is the initial situation after installing MediCal LE The icon appears without the cross after calibration. You can start MediCal LE by: • Double-clicking on the icon in the System Tray • Right-clicking on the icon in the System Tray and selecting Open MediCal LE.
Performing quality checks with test patterns Performing quality checks with test patterns Introduction You can display test patterns to perform quality checks. You can use the patterns for visual checks and for measurements with the optical sensor. Note: In the Options section, you can select which displays in the system need or need not to be controlled. Test patterns will appear only on selected displays. At least one display must be selected . To display a pre-defined test pattern 1. Open MediCal LE.
Performing quality checks with test patterns To display a custom test pattern 1. Open MediCal LE. 2. Click on the Test Patterns... button. 3. Double-click on the Browse icon. 4. An explorer-like dialog appears. Browse to the location where the desired image is stored, select the image, and click Open. The selected image will appear.
Performing quality checks with test patterns Pre-defined test pattern description SMPTE The SMPTE pattern is a universal pattern with which you can check geometry, focus, white luminance, bandwidth and display curve. We suggest to check on display curve. Therefore, check the patches with the 5% gray square on black and the 95% white square on white. The gray squares should be visible if the system is calibrated according to the DICOM display function.
Performing quality checks with test patterns Centered Square This pattern can be used to check the white luminance. Put the optical sensor on the white square and check the measured luminance displayed in the Measure window. Bands with text This pattern can be used to check if the display function is perceptually linear (calibrated according to the DICOM display curve). This is the case if the text in all of the bands is legible. Browse Browse and select your own test pattern.
Performing quality checks with test patterns Uniformity This pattern can be used to check if the white and black levels are uniform all over the screen. Therefore, put the sensor on the different patches on the screen, and check the Measure window to see if the measured value is approximately the same all over the screen. Note: To see what the correction in MediCal LE does to your image, it may be a good idea to compare the SMPTE or Briggs pattern with the correction enabled and disabled.
Calibrating displays Calibrating displays Note: In the Options section, you can select which displays in the system need or need not to be controlled. Calibration is possible only on selected displays. At least one display must be selected. To calibrate displays: 1. Be sure to connect the optical sensor to the PC USB connector or a USB hub. 2. The Found New Hardware wizard may appear, asking you to search for a suitable driver. You can find the sensor drivers on the MediCal LE CD-ROM.
Calibrating displays 7. Select what kind of display you are going to calibrate: LCD (flat panel display) or CRT (display with a picture tube). When done, click on Next. 8. When you use the sensor that came with MediCal LE 1.03 (a circular-shaped sensor), you are asked to calibrate the sensor first. Therefore, carefully cover the “eye” of the sensor completely so that absolutely no light can enter the sensor “eye”. E.g., you can hold the sensor with its “eye” down on a table surface.
Calibrating displays 10. When you have selected to calibrate an “LCD” display, check if geometry and phase are well-aligned. If they are well-aligned, the image is clear, crisp and stable. If they are not well-aligned, the image will show dark bands and/or vibrations, especially in the gray border of the image. In that case, align display geometry and phase until the image is crisp and stable (see “Notes:” below). When done, click on Next.
Calibrating displays 15. When the calibration is finished successfully, the Calibration Successful message appears and a 'happy' sound is played. 16. Click on the Finish button. The Calibration Wizard will start on the next display, in case of a multi-head system. Notes: • If you use a digital (DVI) video signal connection, the adjustments for brightness, contrast, geometry and phase may not be present in your display. • Some LCD displays provide automatic adjustments for geometry and phase (e.g.
Options Options 1. Open MediCal LE. 2. Click on the Options button. 3. Select the display function for all displays of the system. We recommend to select DICOM in almost any medical application. The DICOM curve, if calibrated, ensures that you can distinguish the highest possible number of gray levels. Select CIE if you need to comply to the DIN or IEC standard. Select Gamma to calibrate to a gamma 2.2 function. Click on the Next button. 4.
Working uncalibrated Working uncalibrated You can ignore the corrections you have performed on the display system with MediCal LE. Therefore, right-click on the MediCal LE icon in the Windows Task Bar (the MediCal LE application must be closed). Select Disable Calibration. The selected menu item changes to "Enable calibration". To activate the corrections again, select Enable calibration.
Troubleshooting Troubleshooting The following problems may occur: The sensor is connected, but the system does not find it This may be the case when you unplugged the sensor, and plugged back in while MediCal LE resided in the system tray. Solve this by rebooting your computer. Display window or test patterns appear dithered Ensure that the selected color palette in the display properties is set to True Color. Solve this by selecting a True Color palette.
Glossary Glossary Frequently-used terms: Calibration In many cases, calibration is the remedy for a display that is no longer conform to its target working point, which is defined by the black and white luminance and the display function. The calibration routine restores the black luminance, the white luminance and the display function. Calibrating a display results in changing the PC imaging board's LUT.
Glossary Gamma 2.2 This is a gamma function with a gamma value of 2.2, which is approximately the natural gamma of most CRT displays. Imaging board head An imaging board or graphics board converts the digital data from the computer into analog video voltages. Most of the common imaging boards contain just one set of video and sync outputs. However, some high-end boards, like some of the BarcoMed boards, contain two sets of video and sync outputs. This is called a dual head imaging board.
About MediCal LE About MediCal LE MediCal LE 1.03 version Copyright © 2001-2004 BARCO nv. All rights reserved. More information? http://www.barco.
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