dicompyler

dicompyler is a free, open-source radiation therapy research platform and DICOM RT viewer written in Python. It is for medical physicists, radiation oncology researchers and students who want to open a treatment plan and look at the CT images, contoured structures, dose distribution and dose-volume histograms (DVH). It is not a dental imaging program. Dental relevance is limited to head-and-neck radiotherapy research, where dose to the jaws and teeth is of interest.

The project is discontinued. Its GitHub repository is archived, and the README states that dicompyler “is no longer supported”. The developers of dicompyler and DVH Analytics went on to form ONCurate. The last release, 0.4.2, came out on 15 July 2014. The calculation library that grew out of the project, dicompyler-core, is a separate Python package (latest 0.5.6, May 2023).

dicompyler at a glance

What it does

• Imports CT, MR and PET image series together with DICOM RT Structure Set, RT Dose and RT Plan files.
• Automatically pulls in the related items when you select a dose or structure set, for example the plan and images belonging to that dose.
• Shows a 2D image viewer with isodose lines and contoured structures overlaid on the images.
• Includes a dose-volume histogram viewer that lets you read DVH parameters for each structure.
• Has a DICOM data tree viewer for inspecting every tag in the loaded files.
• Includes a patient anonymiser plugin for preparing teaching datasets.
• Uses a plugin system. Third-party plugins are collected in the dicompyler-plugins repository, and a plugin development guide is on the project wiki.

How dental teams use it

dicompyler has no dental functions. The honest dental use is in research and teaching around head-and-neck radiotherapy, where the radiation dose to the mandible, maxilla and teeth matters for oral health planning. It is a research platform, not a clinical tool, so decisions about individual patients should rely on the treating radiotherapy centre’s own planning system and reports.

Reading jaw dose from an exported RT plan (research/teaching)

1. Get an anonymised RT export (CT images, RT Structure Set, RT Dose and ideally the RT Plan) from a radiotherapy department or a public teaching dataset.
2. Start dicompyler and click Open Patient, then browse to the folder.
3. Highlight the RT Dose item; dicompyler also imports the related plan, structures and images. If the plan has no prescription dose, enter one when asked.
4. Open the DVH view and select the mandible structure, if it was contoured, to read the dose-volume values.
5. Switch to the 2D view to see where the high-dose region sits relative to the teeth.

Preparing anonymised datasets for students

Load a case and use the anonymiser plugin, then check the output with the DICOM tree viewer before sharing it. Always review free-text fields yourself.

Install and first run

Windows and Mac: version 0.4.2 was released as ready-made applications for Windows and Mac, with a set of test data. Install and start it like any other desktop program. The Mac build is for Intel Macs up to macOS 10.13 and must be allowed past Gatekeeper; it will not run on current macOS versions.

Linux / Python: 0.4.2 is on PyPI (pip install dicompyler). It was written for the Python and wxPython versions of 2014, so on a modern system you will usually need an old Python environment. Debian packaged it up to Debian 10 (buster); current Debian releases no longer include it.

From source: the archived GitHub code is newer than 0.4.2. According to the project’s build notes, it targets Python 2.7 or 3.5+, wxPython 4 and dicompyler-core, and runs through dicompyler_app.py. No release was ever made from it, so expect some troubleshooting.

Gotchas: it only reads properly formed DICOM and DICOM RT files. If a plan has no prescription dose, enter one manually before importing the dose, as the README explains.

Limitations

• Discontinued since 2014 and archived: there are no fixes, and it breaks on current macOS and recent Python versions.
• It is a research tool only, not for clinical treatment decisions.
• It has no 3D rendering, no CBCT dental tools and no implant or orthodontic functions.
• It needs RT objects (structures and dose) to be useful. For ordinary X-rays or CBCT it is just a basic 2D viewer.

dicompyler vs alternatives

If you need maintained Python code for DVH calculations, dicompyler-core (the library from the same project) is the closest successor for scripting. For general viewing of CT or CBCT series without RT objects, use a maintained viewer such as Mango or ImageJ / Fiji. For 3D visualisation of volume data in research, ParaView can volume-render image stacks. For DICOM transfer and anonymisation from the command line, dcm4che is actively developed. None of these offers dicompyler’s combination of RT structure, dose overlay and DVH in one small program, and that is why it is still searched for.

FAQ

Is dicompyler still maintained?

No. The GitHub repository is archived and the README says it is no longer supported. The last release is 0.4.2 from July 2014.

What is dicompyler-core?

It is a separate Python library from the same project for reading DICOM RT data and calculating DVHs, without the graphical interface. Its latest release is 0.5.6 (May 2023).

Is dicompyler free?

Yes. It is open source under a BSD licence.

Can dicompyler open dental CBCT scans?

It can load standard CT image series, but it has no dental tools. It is built for radiotherapy structures, dose and DVH, not for CBCT diagnosis.

Does dicompyler run on a modern Mac?

The official Mac build supports Intel Macs up to OS X 10.13. On newer macOS versions you would need to run it from source in a suitable Python environment, which is not officially supported.

How do I install dicompyler on Linux?

Install version 0.4.2 from PyPI with pip in an environment that matches its old dependencies, or run the archived source code with Python and wxPython 4.

Last checked against official sources: 29 September 2026 (developer website: github.com). Versions and licence terms change — confirm on the developer's site before deploying in a clinic.