I used a tool (pvm2raw) available as part of the V^3 library to convert the pvm files to raw, but VTK requires its own simple header. I actually found that this particular header didn’t work (perhaps a VTK versioning problem?) and so taking guidance from this, checked the header of one of the VTK-included volumes:

bash $> head VTKData/ironProt.vk


This header more or less included a little information on the grid size, spacing and representation of the data:

# vtk DataFile Version 1.0
<Name of File>

POINT_DATA <x * y * z>
SCALARS scalars <unsigned_char|unsigned_short>
LOOKUP_TABLE default
<remember to include a newline here>


Concatenating the header with the raw:

bash $> cat header CT-Head.raw > CT-Head.vtk


At that point, I was in business and was able to move on to generating pretty pictures. Granted, these datasets are pretty sparse, but still VTK did a pretty reasonable job. Update: a comment asked for a little bit more detail on this assignment, and so I’m including my report for the project.

I was amazed today that we can see inside of things… without taking them apart. What an age to live in. Especially the virtual autopsy table I read about recently. In 20 years, we’ll have Firefly-style real-time holographic body scans (ignore music, skip to 0:45):