Open files in VS Code and Cursor / 3D and imaging

DICOM to NIfTI in VS Code

Open the DICOM series in DICOM Viewer and click To NIfTI in the toolbar. It saves the series as a .nii.gz volume with the real voxel size and the scanner orientation (sform and qform). Viewing, windowing and the tag table are free; Convert DICOM to NIfTI is a Zovo Pro tool with 3 free tries, then USD 19 once. For large studies and scripted pipelines, dcm2niix is the standard tool.

Free, MIT license. Extension ID zovo.dicom-nifti-viewer, version 0.2.2. Needs VS Code 1.90.0 or newer.

Also free from Zovo: TIFF Viewer & TIF Viewer, VS Code Marketplace · Open VSX (Cursor, Windsurf).

Steps in VS Code

1. Install DICOM Viewer from the Marketplace, or press Ctrl+P (Cmd+P on macOS) and run ext install zovo.dicom-nifti-viewer.
2. Right-click the folder of slices in the Explorer and pick Open Folder as DICOM Series. A single .dcm file or a DICOMDIR opens with a click.
3. Scroll the slices and check the series. A yellow bar shows when Patient's Name or Patient ID is filled.
4. Click To NIfTI in the toolbar, or run "DICOM Viewer: Convert DICOM Series to NIfTI (.nii.gz) (Zovo Pro)" from the Command Palette.
5. Save the .nii.gz file. The voxels are the values the viewer shows, so CT stays in HU.
6. The first 3 runs are free. A try counts only when the file is saved.
7. Click the new .nii.gz to open it in the same viewer and check the orientation letters and header fields.

Where Zovo Pro saves time

Opening DICOM files, DICOM folders and NIfTI (.nii and .nii.gz) is free: window presets, axial, coronal and sagittal views, the value under the cursor, the tag table, the anonymity check and Export PNG. The conversion to NIfTI is a Pro tool.

Right-click a folder that holds several series and you get one .nii.gz per series in one run. The second Pro tool, Export DICOM tags to CSV, writes one row per file with modality, dates, series, size, spacing, position and scanner, so you can check a dataset before training.

With Convert DICOM to NIfTI (Zovo Pro)

8. Right-click a folder that holds several series in the Explorer and run Convert DICOM to NIfTI. Each series becomes its own .nii.gz file.
9. Color (RGB) series are skipped.
10. For a tag list, right-click the folder or run "DICOM Viewer: Export DICOM Tags of a Folder to CSV (Zovo Pro)".
11. Pick Summary for one row per file that only says whether Patient's Name and Patient ID are filled, or Every tag for one column per tag, patient data included.

Convert DICOM to NIfTI works 3 times on your computer before it asks for a license, and a try counts only when you get a result. Opening a file shows no popup and no countdown.

Zovo Pro costs USD 19 once. It is not a subscription, and it turns on the Pro tools in every Zovo extension, not only DICOM Viewer. After a card payment (Stripe) your license key shows on the next page. In VS Code, run "Zovo Pro: Enter Zovo Pro license key" from the Command Palette and paste it. The key is checked on your computer, with no network call. With GitHub Sponsors, pick the "$19 one time" tier, then run "Zovo Pro: I already paid: unlock with GitHub Sponsors" and sign in with the same GitHub account. With PayPal, send USD 19 with "Zovo Pro" in the note and the key comes by email within a day.

A team of 5: USD 59 once, by card or by PayPal. Every rule and every Pro tool is on the Zovo Pro page.

Steps in Cursor, Windsurf or VSCodium

1. Open the Extensions view with Ctrl+Shift+X (Cmd+Shift+X on macOS).
2. Search for zovo.dicom-nifti-viewer and click Install. Cursor, Windsurf and VSCodium install from Open VSX, where it is published as zovo/dicom-nifti-viewer.
3. If your editor has no gallery, download the .vsix from the Open VSX page and run "Extensions: Install from VSIX...".
4. Then use it the same way as in VS Code.

What DICOM Viewer handles

• Saves a DICOM series as one .nii.gz volume.
• Keeps the real voxel size and the scanner orientation (sform and qform), so nibabel, ITK-SNAP, 3D Slicer and training code read it in the right place.
• The voxels are the values the viewer shows: CT stays in HU, with Rescale Slope and Intercept applied.
• A folder with several series gives one file per series. Slices are sorted by Image Position (Patient).
• Reads Implicit VR Little Endian, Explicit VR Little Endian, Explicit VR Big Endian, Deflated Explicit VR Little Endian and RLE Lossless.
• Never writes over a DICOM or NIfTI file. No network calls and no telemetry.

What it does not do

• JPEG Baseline, JPEG Extended, JPEG Lossless, JPEG-LS, JPEG 2000, HTJ2K and MPEG or HEVC video aren't decoded yet. Those files open with their tag table only, so convert them with dcm2niix.
• Color (RGB) series are skipped. PALETTE COLOR images and 1-bit pixels aren't decoded.
• It saves the .nii.gz volume only. It writes no BIDS JSON sidecar; dcm2niix does.
• Scans over 1024 MB are not read unless you raise dicomViewer.maxFileMB (up to 4096).

Other options

• dcm2niix. The standard free DICOM to NIfTI converter in neuroimaging. It handles compressed transfer syntaxes and vendor details, and writes BIDS JSON sidecars. Use it for big datasets and scripted pipelines.
• MRIcroGL. A free desktop viewer from the dcm2niix author with a window for dcm2niix built in. A good pick if you prefer a window to the command line.
• dicom2nifti (Python). A Python package. dicom2nifti.convert_directory(dicom_dir, out_dir) converts every series in a folder from your own code.
• 3D Slicer. A free desktop app. Load the series with the DICOM module and save the volume as .nii.gz. Good when you also need to segment or view in 3D.

Install counts and Open VSX status were checked on 10 November 2026. Descriptions in quotes are the extensions' own.

Questions

More about DICOM Viewer

Read the DICOM Viewer page for every feature and setting, or the source code on GitHub.

Related guides

• TIFF Viewer & TIF Viewer on the VS Code Marketplace (also on Open VSX). Opens TIFF and GeoTIFF images, 16-bit included, in VS Code.
• Open DICOM and NIfTI files in VS Code
• Check a DICOM series for patient data in VS Code
• View STL files in VS Code
• Calculate the volume of an STL file