Open-source libraries are an alternative choice for integrating DICOM support into applications.
In that sense, there exist numerous public domain applications that can be used by radiologists and other specialists for reading and displaying DICOM images files and even for reading DICOMDIR index files, which cannot be integrated into applications under development because of their proprietary code.Ĭompanies, such as Lead Technologies, ETIAM, Merge, Laurel Bridge, and DeJarnette, have commercial software development kits (SDKs) that provide complete implementations of the DICOM standard, but the acquisition costs for these SDKs are high. The use of DICOMDIR directory files is almost mandatory for searching, accessing, and browsing medical images because they index the files belonging to the patient on whom the studies were performed, thus making it easier to access to those images and their associated medical information.ĭuring the medical application software development, the use of programming interfaces (APIs) or class libraries is frequent in order to solve the computation and visualization needs, as well as for providing DICOM support to the applications. These images generated from radiological studies and stored according to the specifications of parts 10, 11 and 12 of the DICOM standard (NEMA, 2004e, f,& g) must be retrieved from storage media as a bidimensional display or in tridimensional reconstructions and other special processes, such as fusion and segmentation of images. In such applications, the handling of images coming from different acquisition modalities is essential. These applications range from health care information systems and picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) () solutions, to technological support systems for medical procedures, such as image-based diagnosis and surgical planning, which previously depended on the knowledge and expertise of the physicians. Since then, the appearance and use of computer-assisted medical applications have increased, as a result of the accelerated technological development and the standardization process of medical information representation and handling, which generated a greater demand of development tools for those applications. Also it was to facilitate the interoperability among acquisition equipments and other medical devices, as well as their integration within specialized information systems in the medical and health care area. Its main goal was to establish norms for handling, storing, and interchanging medical images and associated digital information within open systems. The digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) standard (National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA0, 2004a Revet, 1997) was published in 1993. It produces an output data tree containing the information of the DICOM images and their related radiological studies, which can be browsed easily in a structured way through navigation interfaces coupled to it. To solve this problem, this work introduces an object-oriented design and an open-source implementation for such reading tool.
However, these libraries do not provide suitable tools for reading DICOMDIR files, making necessary the implementation of a flexible tool for reading these files, which can be also easily integrated into applications under development. During the medical application software development, specialized programming libraries are commonly used in order to solve the requirements of computation and scientific visualization. DICOMDIR directory files are useful in medical software applications because they allow organized access to images and information sets that come from radiological studies that are stored in conformance with the digital imaging and communication in medicine (DICOM) standard.