Images illustrating work done in the Basic Radiological Sciences Division can be found in several places on the Web sites of the units that comprise the Division. This page is shared by these sites and gives some hints for viewing the images, as well as hints for viewing movies.
The ability to visualize subtle features in medical image datasets depends greatly on the contrast/brightness settings (or "window/level" in radiologic parlance) used to process and display the data. In addition, the gamma of the display system must be considered. Its effect on perceived image quality can easily over-shadow any previously made window/level adjustments. Thus, viewing images successfully over the Web often depends on being able to control the effective gamma of the display system. This may be accomplished in the Web browser or image viewer application software (perhaps via a command line option or some type of configuration mechanism), a windowing system resource, or a parameter adjustment in the application itself.
The images shown on our pages were processed and written out to disk using a window/level setting appropriate for display on our system. If image display is not satisfactory on your system, try to adjust the gamma by one of the means listed above. For GIF images (most often displayed from within Web browsers without going out to a helper application), the best solution may be to write the image to a file and read it into a separate viewer application that allows control over gamma or contrast/brightness. For example, on Unix systems where xv is available (see Penn State's ftp site or John Bradley's xv page), bring-up xv's Color Editor by pressing "e" on the keyboard. (Alternatively, select it from the menu under the Windows button in the "xv controls" window.) The Color Editor's Intensity widget has a button labeled "GAM". (These hints for xv are based on version 3.10a.) xv also reads other image formats, such as JPEG, another format often encountered on the Web.
For more information on gamma (and color), see Charles Poynton's Color Technology Page. This is an excellent place to learn about color and gamma. Its purpose is not, however, to address applied aspects such as Unix window managers (although there is a section on gamma on the Macintosh). You may want to check Robert Berger's interesting note on monitor gamma. The Usenet group sci.engr.color may also be helpful.
Finally, for what it's worth, here's a grayscale strip:
Both QuickTime and MPEG movies appear on our pages. Many of the comments made in the previous section with regard to color and gamma also apply to movies.
Other links...