Your first CBCT read
A ten-minute walkthrough of a complete read — opening a study, flying the viewports, windowing, and taking your first measurements. Follow along with a sample study in the live demo.
1. Open the study
From the study browser, double-click any CBCT study. The volume streams progressively — you can start reading the first slices while the rest arrive. The default layout gives you four viewports: axial, coronal, sagittal and the 3D volume.
The demo ships with anonymised sample studies — everything in this guide works there, with no installation.
2. Fly the viewports
Every 2D viewport shares the same controls. Hover any pane and:
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Scroll | Step through slices |
| Right-drag | Zoom in and out |
| Middle-drag | Pan the image |
| Double-click | Maximise / restore a pane |
| Left-drag (3D) | Orbit the volume |
3. Window the image
Windowing controls which densities you see. Pick a preset from the toolbar — Bone, Soft tissue or Airway — or hold W and drag: horizontal adjusts width, vertical adjusts level.
The 3D viewport carries its own presets. Switching to Airway there renders the airway as an isolated translucent volume — a fast visual check before you measure anything.
4. Localise with the crosshair
Click anywhere in a 2D pane and the crosshair jumps there in all four viewports at once — the same anatomical point, seen axially, coronally and sagittally. This is the fastest way to chase a finding through the volume: click it in axial, confirm it in the other two planes.
If segmentation has already run, hovering a tooth shows its FDI number beside the crosshair — click the label to isolate that tooth in 3D.
5. Take a measurement
Pick the ruler from the toolbar (or press M) and click two points. Measurements are anchored in volume space, so they stay correct as you scroll, zoom or reorient. You also get:
- Angle — three clicks, reported in degrees
- Density probe — the value in HU under the cursor
- Annotations — text notes pinned to anatomy, saved with the study
That is a complete first read. The natural next step is the four-pane MPR workflow — crosshair discipline plus curved reconstructions along the arch.