Editing STIR FAQ (section)

== How to display images generated by STIR? ==
STIR comes with a very basic utility called '''manip_image''' that displays image slices, but it
is really only useful for a quick check (or to see if STIR did read your image as expected). '''stir_write_pgm''' can be used to write a slice
as a single PGM bitmap. However, normally, your best option is
to use an external display program.

By default, STIR uses a version of the Interfile format, although only a subset of keywords is implemented.(see below for output in other file formats)
(See the STIR web-site for more links on Interfile).

[http://amide.sourceforge.net Amide] and [http://xmedcon.sourceforge.net xmedcon] read STIR .hv files without trouble as long as the
data-offset is zero (e.g. files which are written by STIR). Other packages
might ignore the scale factor (but STIR by default writes as floats with
scale factor 1). And other packages might insist on using the official
Interfile 3.3 standard. The .ahv files written by STIR are closer to that, but they have a
tweak to let Analyze (from the Mayo) read them correctly (as Analyze
misinterprets the z-spacing). Open one of the .ahv files in your text editor
and read the comments.

STIR currently uses a home-grown way to specify the image origin. No other program
supports this convention as far as we know (as Interfile currently does not have
relevant keywords). STIR currently completely ignores
patient orientation etc. So if you have an image of the same object written
by a different program, and the display program tries to interpret
coordinate systems, it's unlikely the 2 objects will be displayed in the
same location.