When you download images you have added to your cart, TCIA provides a list of these images in a manifest file (manifest-xxx.tcia). You must have already installed the NBIA Data Retriever to open this manifest file and download the images.
You can share the manifest file with collaborators, so that they can download the same images that you have added to your cart. Collaborators must also install the NBIA Data Retriever to open the manifest file.
If you want to share a manifest file that includes links to private image collections, you must first manually install the latest NBIA Data Retriever. The latest version of the NBIA Data Retriever controls access to private collections. In addition, your collaborators must have the same access to those private collections as you do. Otherwise, your collaborators will not be able to download images from those collections.
To download images using the NBIA Data Retriever
- Search for images of interest.
- Add those images to your cart.
- Click the cart icon in the top-right of the page
.
The cart contents appear.
- Click
.
A message appears reminding you to download the NBIA Data Retriever. If you have already downloaded it, click Do not show this message again and click. Otherwise, click 
to go to a page with links for downloads for each operating system.
- Open the
manifest-xxx.tciafile.
The Data Usage Policy notification appears.
- Click Agree. You must agree to the data usage policy before you can proceed with downloading the data in your cart. Note that this policy is included in the license file accompanying your download.
If you have added limited-access series to your cart, the NBIA Data Retriever login window appears. Enter your user name and password and click Submit.
If all of the series you have added to your cart are public, the NBIA Data Retriever appears, showing the items you added to your cart in the Downloads table.
Notes:
- To verify the integrity of the download, select File > Checksum Verification prior to clicking Start. This calculates the checksum value of files you are downloading, comparing it with the same data in the database. If a mismatch is detected, an error message will appear, and you can also click the three dots in the Status column for more information. If you do not select Checksum Verification, the NBIA Data Retriever will still verify the download by comparing the file size of the series you are downloading against the database.
If there are series in your download that have commercial use restrictions, the NBIA Data Retriever displays a message referring you to the license information for these series.
You can hover your mouse over the Patient ID, Study Instance, and Series Instance columns to reveal the complete corresponding IDs. You can also resize a column by selecting and dragging the column border.
If you do not want to download any of those items, select them in the Downloads table and then click Delete. When you remove an item from the Downloads table, it stays in your cart in the Radiology Portal.
If you close the NBIA Data Retriever in the middle of a download, NBIA Data Retriever remembers the partial download. When you restart the NBIA Data Retriever, choosing the same download directory as before, and click Start, you are prompted to specify whether you want to download just the missing series or download all of the series in the original manifest file.
If you choose Download all, the existing download folder will be overwritten with all of the series in the original manifest file. If you choose Download missing series, only those series you have not previously downloaded appear in the Downloads table in the NBIA Data Retriever window, then download only those series.
NBIA Data Retriever File Naming System
The file naming system used by the NBIA Data Retriever provides a natural ordering of the files within each series. The DICOM files are first ordered by ordinal position of acquisition number and then by ordinal position of instance number. The files are then assigned numbers with the lowest acquisition being 1 and the lowest instance number within that acquisition being 1, separated by a dash. The numbers are incremented by 1 as the next values are encountered. All values are left-padded with zeros to provide for the ordering within the file system.
As an example, a series with 2 acquisition numbers with each acquisition having 42 instance numbers would start with 1-01.dcm for the lowest acquisition number and the lowest instance number in that acquisition. The last file in that acquisition would be 1-42.dcm. Then the second acquisition would start with 2-01.dcm, ending with 2-42.dcm, in that acquisition. For the purposes of ordering, an empty value in either acquisition number or instance number is lower than an file having a value for those number.
- Click Browse to navigate to the destination where you want the images/annotations to be downloaded.
- Click Start to begin the download. You can monitor the status of the full download in the progress bar on top, and for each collection in the Progress column. The Status column indicates when the download for each item is complete.
At any point in the process, you can click the Pause and Resume buttons to temporarily stop and restart the process.
The downloaded files are stored in a child folder under the destination folder such as
Collection Name > Patient ID > part of Study Date + part of Study ID + part of Study Description + last 5 digits of Study Instance UID > part of Series Number + part of Series Description + last 5 digits of Series Instance UID.Network Error?
If network errors occur during large downloads, the NBIA Data Retriever retries downloading the series in the manifest file the number of times that your administrator has configured. The default is four times.
After the automatic retries, you have the option of retrying just the failed series, saving an error report, which you can share with the TCIA help desk, and exiting.
