Bring your ankle or foot radiograph into the browser to line up the mortise, the talar dome, and the base of the fifth metatarsal, then ask for an AI walkthrough of what the rendered frames show. A plain film cannot resolve the syndesmotic ligaments or the plantar fascia — that is an MRI question — but it remains the fastest way to rule a fracture in or out after a twisting injury. Nothing you load leaves your device; only the images you choose to submit are sent for AI interpretation.
Load Your Ankle RadiographAn ankle series is usually three exposures. The AP view is taken straight on and gives a first look at the distal tibia and fibula. The mortise view rotates the foot fifteen to twenty degrees internally so the talocrural joint opens up flat on the film — this is the projection a clinician reaches for to judge the medial clear space and whether the syndesmosis has widened. The lateral view is taken from the side and shows the talar dome, the posterior malleolus, and heel alignment in profile.
A foot series follows a different three-view convention: AP, oblique, and lateral. The oblique view is what exposes the base of the fifth metatarsal and the tarsometatarsal joints — the region a Lisfranc injury disrupts. When a fracture or ligament injury is suspected, weight-bearing versions of these views are ordered instead of the non-loaded default, because standing on the joint reveals gapping or collapse that a relaxed foot on a table will hide. A dedicated hindfoot alignment view, often called a Saltzman view, is taken from behind the weight-bearing heel to measure how the calcaneus sits under the tibia.
On the mortise film specifically, the radiologist is measuring the medial clear space — the gap between the medial malleolus and the talus — and comparing it to the space above the talar dome. A medial clear space that has widened beyond roughly four millimeters, or a mortise that looks asymmetric compared to the space at the top of the joint, points to syndesmotic widening even when no fracture line is visible.
Drop your X-ray DICOM files or ZIP archive. Supports AP, lateral, oblique, and weight-bearing views.
Automatically renders bone and soft tissue windows. Adjust brightness and contrast, zoom, pan, and measure distances in millimeters.
4 AI models independently assess fractures, arthritis, alignment, and bone density. Claude synthesizes a unified report with findings and confidence levels.
Not every rolled ankle needs a radiograph. Emergency clinicians commonly apply the Ottawa ankle rules: a film is warranted when there is bone tenderness along the back edge or tip of either malleolus, tenderness at the base of the fifth metatarsal or the navicular, or an inability to bear weight for four steps both right after the injury and in the exam room. If none of those apply, the rules predict a clinically insignificant fracture risk and skip the radiation and the wait. If you already have images from a visit that did order a film, this viewer lets you look at exactly what the report is describing.
Once a frame is loaded you can adjust window and level to push soft tissue out of the way and pull cortical bone into contrast, zoom and pan to get close to a suspected fracture line, and invert the grayscale when a hairline crack is easier to see as a bright line on a dark background than the reverse. A caliper tool lets you drop points across the medial clear space or estimate talar tilt directly on the mortise view instead of eyeballing it.
Because an ankle or foot study is almost always read as a set, the viewer keeps the AP, mortise, and lateral frames — or the AP, oblique, and lateral foot frames — open side by side so you can cross-check a finding on one projection against the others before drawing a conclusion from any single image.
If your clinic captured a weight-bearing series or a hindfoot alignment view, load those alongside the standard set rather than in a separate session. A weight-bearing mortise frame can show gapping that the same joint, unloaded on a table, closes back up and hides, and a Saltzman hindfoot view only makes sense when you can flip back to the lateral film to see how much heel tilt corresponds to the alignment number.
Ankle and foot reports use a small, recurring vocabulary. An “avulsion fragment” is a small piece of bone pulled off at a ligament attachment rather than a break straight through the shaft — common at the tip of the fibula or the base of the fifth metatarsal. “Lisfranc alignment” refers to whether the second metatarsal lines up with the middle cuneiform on the AP and oblique foot views; even a millimeter of shift there is treated seriously because it signals a disrupted tarsometatarsal joint. A note about the “talar dome” usually flags an osteochondral lesion — a small defect in the cartilage-covered top of the talus that a plain film can only suggest through subtle bone changes underneath it.
Keep in mind that a radiograph is a single flattened projection, not a stack. There are no slices to scroll through and no volume to spin around, so anything hidden directly behind another bone on that projection simply will not appear — which is why a normal-looking ankle X-ray does not rule out a subtle talar dome lesion or an occult Lisfranc injury, and why a CT or MRI sometimes follows a film that looks clean.
AI support translates report wording and rendered image context into plain language, but it is not a substitute for a licensed radiologist's second opinion. Lean on it to prepare sharper questions for your clinician, especially when an ankle or foot report mentions medial clear space widening, a Jones fracture, or Lisfranc malalignment.
Read the AI imaging explanation guideRaw X-ray files stay on your device. All DICOM parsing, rendering, and viewing happens entirely in your browser using WebAssembly and Canvas API.
Works in any modern browser — Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge. No plugins, no Java, no desktop software to download.
Four independent AI models can explain rendered X-ray images for fractures, arthritis, alignment, and bone density patterns. Claude synthesizes a consensus report.
Bone window highlights fractures and joint spaces. Soft tissue window reveals effusions and swelling. Zoom up to 4x and measure distances in millimeters.
AP, lateral, oblique, weight-bearing, sunrise/Merchant, and tunnel views. Both computed radiography (CR) and digital radiography (DR) formats.
Generate a professional report with structured findings, severity grading, model agreement, and recommendations for your physician.
DICOM (.dcm) — digital radiography files
ZIP archives — containing multiple X-ray views
Computed Radiography (CR) and Digital Radiography (DR)
JPEG Lossless (1.2.840.10008.1.2.4.70) transfer syntax
Explicit VR Little Endian, Implicit VR Little Endian
12-bit and 16-bit pixel depth
MONOCHROME1 and MONOCHROME2 photometric interpretation
Yes, there is no charge to load and view ankle or foot radiographs in the browser, and no limit on how many studies you open. AI-assisted reading is a paid add-on billed at $10 per analysis session.
The DICOM decoding and rendering run locally in your browser through JavaScript and WebAssembly, so raw files stay on your machine. Only the rendered frames you deliberately submit for AI interpretation are transmitted anywhere.
The mortise view is the ankle X-ray taken with the foot rotated fifteen to twenty degrees inward so the talocrural joint sits flat on the film. It is the projection used to measure the medial clear space and check for syndesmotic widening, so most ankle reports reference it directly.
No. The Ottawa ankle rules reserve imaging for cases with bone tenderness at the malleoli, tenderness at the base of the fifth metatarsal or navicular, or an inability to walk four steps. Many sprains that clear those checks are treated without a film.
The AI consortium checks cortical continuity along the malleoli and the base of the fifth metatarsal, along with alignment across the mortise and Lisfranc joints, and cross-references the four readings to cut down on missed fragments. A radiologist should still confirm any finding before it guides treatment.
No. A radiograph shows bone position and can imply a torn syndesmosis through widening of the medial clear space, but it cannot image the ligament fibers directly. Confirming a ligament tear needs an MRI, which our free ankle MRI viewer supports.
A radiograph is a single flat projection, so a fracture or a subtle talar dome defect visible on one view can be hidden behind overlapping bone on another. Comparing the AP, mortise, and lateral frames side by side catches findings that any one view alone would miss.
On Analyze My Ankle, the viewer helps you inspect ankle scans and connect the images to common injury patterns before a clinician visit.
Review ligament sprains, Achilles tendon tears, osteochondral lesions, stress fractures, peroneal tendon injury, and tarsal tunnel patterns.
Use the ankle condition and learn pages to prepare better questions about instability, swelling, tendon pain, and joint-surface injury.