Dose Volume Calculation

[pchlap]

Hi Andrew,

thanks a lot for this great script. We are currently just trying to get the script working with our Pinnacle versions (9.0 and up). Everything seems to be working well except for the export of the dose volume, where the intensities seem to be off by some factor. Could you explain to me how the dose volume is represented in the Pinnacle binary files? Then I can begin to understand how the conversion to Gy in the script is working, and hopefully figure out where the error is creeping in :)

Thanks! Phil

[AndrewWAlexander]

Hi Phil,

Thanks for using the code. It has been awhile since I was coding this, but I believe we made a decision to not code the DVHs into the DICOM dose file. This was because we use Eclipse, and when you import a DICOM dose file with a DVH, Eclipse will ignore the DVH component of the file.

If you would like, we can work together to code the DVHs into the DICOM dose file. We will first have to determine where this information is stored within the Pinnacle files.

thanks Andrew

[AndrewWAlexander]

Hi Phil,

Are you are still using this code? I have sometime to examine this issue. I am not sure if I understood your original question. Please clarify if your question is about the 3D dose matrix values or the DVH dose values?

[pchlap]

Hi Andrew,

thanks for reaching out. Our issue is with the calculation of the 3D dose matrix values. The solution in #6 helped, however our 3D dose matrices are still consistently off by ~1% compared to those exported manually inside Pinnacle.

I have actually also refactored your script quite a bit, allowing it to be called easily from the command line or from Python code. Once we have it working in a way we are happy with I will upload it to a separate branch of your repository for you to try out :)

Thanks Phil

[AndrewWAlexander]

Hi Phil,

Yes we did notice that there is a small dose difference between the script and a DICOM export from Pinnacle. It took awhile to get the dose values to agree at the 1% level and I have not spent much time to improve beyond that agreement. I appreciate that you are working on this! The goal for us was to create a script that we could get the DICOM CT images and structures restored into our R&R database. The DICOM plan and dose files were just a bonus I worked on because I thought it would complete the script for others. Keep me posted on what you find.

Andrew