Getting started. New version

  1. Can I run COBRA on my own PC?
  2. How long will it take to reconstruct a 3D image?
  3. What is the difference between demo and commercial (licensed) Cobra?
  4. I have a complete set of Cobra executable files. What should I do to make Cobra work properly? What if I want to keep two sets of Cobra files residing in different folders and corresponding to different Cobra versions? How to install (uninstall) COBRA manually?

Choosing PC to run Cobra

  1. What would be a recommended PC?
  2. What would be a recommended graphics card (GPU)?
  3. The top-of-the-line graphics card is not available or does not fit my budget. Give me an idea about the reconstruction performance if I use a less powerful card?
  4. Which type of PC (hyper-threaded, multi-core, etc.) should I use to get the best performance?
  5. Is Cobra working (compatible) with Windows XP 64-bit and Windows 7 64-bit? Does Exxim have any plans to offer a special 64-bit version of Cobra?
  6. How to install COBRA on a PC cluster?
  7. Cluster solutions: how to achieve the best reconstruction performance?
  8. Cluster solutions: are all nodes required to be the same PCs (shall a cluster be homogeneous)?

Business related

  1. How can I get a price list? How can I buy a license for COBRA?
  2. What support do I get from Exxim?
  3. Can I update Cobra to a new version and is it free?
  4. Can I upgrade Cobra license (for example from the basic stand-alone to SDK)?

Cobra does not work properly

  1. I have downloaded the latest COBRA package, but failed to install it. What do I do?
  2. When I start COBRA, I get the splash screen with the logo, but then nothing happens. What is the problem? What kind of help I can get from Exxim?
  3. I can start Cobra GUI but the reconstruction process cannot be started or “hangs down”. What is the problem? What kind of help I can get from Exxim?
  4. Output slices come out blank. What is the problem?
  5. Output image comes out corrupted (low/high contrast, over-/underflow, distorted geometry, totally wrong content). What is the problem? What kind of help I can get from Exxim?
  6. How to upload a dataset to the Exxim's FTP site so Exxim engineers may analyze my problem and help to resolve it?
  7. I want Exxim people to help with my case but my dataset is too big to upload. What should I do?
  8. I unstalled the latest nVidia driver. Since that COBRA GUI does not work properly (strange effects with pull-down menu and vertical tabs). What should I do?

Data Formats

  1. What formats are accepted for the input projections?
  2. What information, contained inside some images (TIFF, DICOM), can be utilized?
  3. Can slices be saved in DICOM format with .dcm file extension? Is it possible to modify the tag values or add new tags into the DICOM header?
  4. Give some more information about the data types and sizes of the preprocd_proj.000 and logged_proj.000 files?
  5. How to define a factual slice number that have been saved on the disk in a stacked volume mode?
  6. How to calibrate the reconstruction output to Hounsfield units (HU)? How does calibration depend on scanner settings?

Reconstruction parameters

  1. What is the difference between the tags PARTAG_PROJACQUIRED and PARTAG_PROJRECON?
  2. Can you give more detail on PARTAG_SCALEFACTOR and OPTAG_SLICESCALE?
  3. Is it always better to run a detector at its full resolution?
  4. What are these text files found in COBRA work directory: ANGLE_ARRAY, HORTILTING_ARRAY, ORIGDETDIST_ARRAY, etc.?
  5. Could you please help us by telling us the operations that you do to create and apply the projection matrices?

Scanner Calibration

  1. How to calibrate the reconstruction output to Hounsfield Units? How does calibration depend on scanner settings?
  2. How can I make a geometry calibration phantom myself?

For Siemens Inveon users

  1. How to reconstruct directly from .cat file.