Visualizing or parsing 3ddose files

The output files from DOSXYZnrc and some egs++ simulations that output dose are in the 3ddose format, which is plain-text and easy to parse. EGSnrc is distributed with a few rudimentary tools that can process the 3ddose format, but third-party tools have also been developed for visualization of the dose, plotting profiles, etc.

EGSnrc tools

• dosxyz_show can load 3ddose files to plot contours overlaid on a egsphant format phantom
• statdose is a command-line script that generates dose curves, comparisons between dose files, and can perform normalizations
• egs_view can load 3ddose files and display the dose as coloured voxels overlaid on an XYZ geometry
  • The egsinp file must contain an XYZ geometry that matches the phantom dimensions of the 3ddose file
  • egs++ applications can produce a 3ddose file using a dose scoring ausgab object
• The 3ddose format is quite simple. If you wish to understand it in order to write your own parsing script, a good starting point is this python script (there is also a matplotlib example).

External resources

• VICTORIA is a web-based dose viewer for visualizing and plotting dose, requiring no installation. The dose files never leave your computer, and are parsed in the browser. It supports 3ddose and DICOM files, data export and DVH generation.
• 3ddose-tools (now included as a submodule in EGSnrc) can visualize isodose curves, produce plots, compare dose files, normalize results and more.
• Profeel is an open source tool for 1D, 2D and 3D data comparison, data processing and analytics. It supports dose profiles, gamma index, dose differences and more. Supported datatypes: IBA Omnipro (ASCII export), PTW (.mcc), PTW software exports (ASCII), EGSnrc (.3ddose) and DicomRT (RD dose). See the Profeel paper.
• CERR is a very large software for radiological research, and supports 3ddose files.
• dose2msh can be used to convert 3ddose files into a CAD mesh format.