Free tool

Which .dcm do you have?

Two unrelated formats share this ending. One is a CBCT or an X-ray. The other is a 3Shape mesh. Drop the file and see what it says about itself.

Drop a .dcm here

The file is read on this device and stays on it.

Same ending, two files.

at byte 128DICM
DICOM: images
at byte 0<HPS
3Shape: a mesh

The ending says nothing

The first bytes say everything.

A DICOM file is a medical image with its own header. The standard reserves 128 bytes at the start and then writes four letters: DICM. A CBCT usually arrives as hundreds of these files, one per slice.

A 3Shape .dcm is a surface mesh. It is a text file that opens with an HPS tag, holds the geometry as encoded data, and usually names the program that wrote it.

They share nothing but three letters. That is why a 3Shape scan ends up in a CBCT viewer that cannot show it. This page reads the contents and does not trust the name.

Export from 3Shape

The STL comes out of 3Shape.

3Shape documents three paths. They depend on the program and on what your dongle has switched on.

3Shape's documentation says DCM to STL conversion cannot be done in third-party software.3Shape help

3Shape Unite

  1. Open the case from Patients or Cases.
  2. Open the three-dot menu, then choose Export and Scans.
  3. Choose where to save, select STL or PLY, and click Save.

Only post-processed or sent scans can be exported. PLY needs an active TRIOS license on the dongle.

Not tested by TrazaLab, which does not have this software.Steps from 3Shape help

Dental System, TRIOS orders

  1. In Dental Manager, open Orders and right-click the order.
  2. Choose Advanced, then Export Scan.
  3. Under Save as Type, select STL or PLY and click Save.

Needs the TRIOS Scan STL Export dongle option. PLY needs Dental System 2021 or later. Orders from Communicate, Direct Connection or FTP must be accepted in the Inbox first. Rename each file, because TRIOS scans share a default name.

Not tested by TrazaLab, which does not have this software.Steps from 3Shape help

Dental System, lab scans

  1. In Dental Manager, right-click the scanned order.
  2. Choose Advanced, then Export Scan.
  3. Under Save as Type, select STL File (.stl) and click Save.

Needs the ScanIt Restoration STL Output module on the dongle. Your reseller activates it.

Not tested by TrazaLab, which does not have this software.Steps from 3Shape help

If it is a DICOM

A DICOM is not a mesh.

A CBCT is a stack of images. An STL is a surface. Getting from one to the other means deciding which voxels count as bone or tooth. That is segmentation, and it is a clinical and technical decision, not a change of format.

This site has no DICOM-to-STL converter. 3D Slicer and InVesalius are free desktop programs that segment, and checking the result is up to you.

Open the DICOM viewer DICOM workspace

Questions about .dcm files

Does this page convert a 3Shape DCM to STL?

No. It identifies the file and shows how to export it. 3Shape's documentation says DCM to STL conversion cannot be done in third-party software. This page does not decrypt or unpack the mesh.

Does my file leave the browser?

No. The bytes are read on this device. Nothing is uploaded, and the page never reads the patient fields in the file.

How does it tell the two apart?

By the contents. A standard DICOM has the word DICM at byte 128. A 3Shape .dcm is text that opens with an HPS tag. The file name plays no part.

What does "protected" mean?

The file declares schema CE and a key marker. Schemas CA, CB and CC are the published compression schemas. This page stops there: it does not try to open the geometry of any schema.

Why won't my .dcm open in a DICOM viewer?

Most likely it is a 3Shape mesh. A DICOM viewer only understands images. Check it here, and if it is one, export it from 3Shape.

I have a CBCT folder. Do I need to upload all of it?

Nothing is uploaded. Choose one file or several. The page checks them on this device and tells you how many there are of each kind.

Can I convert a DICOM to STL here?

No. The images have to be segmented, and that is not a change of format. 3D Slicer and InVesalius are free desktop programs that do it.

Have you tested these export steps?

Not in the software itself, because TrazaLab does not have 3Shape. They come from 3Shape's help pages, linked beside each path. Menu names are the ones in its English documentation.

When the file belongs to a case.

In TrazaLab, DICOM and CBCT series are reviewed in the same case as STL files and clinical evidence.

Files and scanners DICOM workspace
Clara Mendez's CBCT in the DICOM viewer: axial slice 61 of 201 at 220%, with W/L, Pan, Measure, HU probe, and Dental, Bone, Soft and File.