The purpose of a teaching file is to organize and display educational images. Key images are imported from PACS or other sources, and grouped into cases, where they are annotated with captions and presented through the Case Manager. For optimal viewing in a web browser, the teaching file server automatically formats images to several standard sizes and converts them to JPEGs. To view case images, simply navigate to a case using the category browser, the search form, or a folder, and the images for that case will appear after the case title and history, before the findings text:

This section describes how to resize images, view images only, retrieve images in their original format, and save images to your hard drive.

Images may be imported from multiple sources, having vastly different dimensions. For example, a CT image may be 512x512 pixels, while a digital photo of a chest x-ray may be 1600x1200 pixels. To make images appear uniform, the server automatically generates standardized copies of every image. Images are stored in the following sizes:

•  Small - 256 pixels wide
•  Medium - 512 pixels wide
•  Large - 1024 pixels wide
•  As Submitted - the original dimensions of the image

To select the size for your images, simply click on one of the four size labels above the images:

The page will be reloaded with the new image sizes. The size you choose will be "sticky" during your login session: all case images will appear in that size until you log out or change it again.

To reduce ambient light and create a more favorable environment for viewing fine details in the images, you enter "images only" mode by clicking on any image, or by clicking "images only" to the right of the size controls:

This will display the images and captions on a dark background, without the banner or the rest of the case text. Once you are in this mode, if some images scroll past the bottom of the screen, as an alternative to using the scroll bar you may click on any partially visible image to bring it into full view.

To return to the case view, click on "Back to case":

Although the case images are always displayed as JPEGs, the server does keep the original uncompressed files. These can be retrieved by the case author at any time. While viewing your own cases, you will see an additional control called "original format" to the right of the size controls.

Click this link to see a list of the filenames of the images exactly as they were imported, prior to conversion to JPEG. For example, you may have imported them as bitmaps, gifs, or DICOM images.

The format of each file is evident from the filename extension (for example, "3061.DCM" is a DICOM file). To retrieve a copy of one of the images in its original format, right-click on the filename and choose "Save Target As...".

You may want to save copies of case images to your hard drive for use in external software, such as a Powerpoint presentation. If your system allows it, follow these steps:

1. Click on the desired image size (e.g. "medium")
2. Right-click on the image you want to save.
3. Choose "Save Picture As..." or similar option from the browser popup menu.
4. Specify a destination on your hard drive for the image file.

Some systems are configured to disallow saving images from cases that you do not own. If your system adheres to this restriction, you will be prevented from saving images unless you own the case.