DICOM Best Practices
DICOM Setup
DICOM setups are usually a specific type of series setup, meaning a series must have sequential continuous index numbers to upload the data. In DICOM, the information is automatically populated from the fields in the DICOM headers.
These fields are extracted and used to populate the series information. Both are required:
- StudyInstanceUID (0020,000D)
- SeriesInstanceUID (0020,000E)
These fields are extracted and used to populate the series index if the DICOM files are one frame each. Either of these is required (not both). These fields are not required if the DICOM files are multi-frame. This is because the frame ordering is built into the files:
- InstanceNumber (0020,0013)
- SliceLocation (0020,1041)
DICOM Tags
Mandatory Tags
- StudyInstanceUID, SeriesInstanceUID, SOPInstanceUID: Unique identifiers
- PhotometricInterpretation: Color space information
- Rows, Columns: Image dimensions
- PixelRepresentation: Pixel data interpretation
- Modality: Imaging modality type
- PixelSpacing: Spatial resolution
- BitsAllocated: Pixel bit depth
- SOPClassUID: DICOM service class
Tags must be valid for proper loading. You can refer here for example valid tag values.
Constraints include:
- The row and column direction cosine vectors shall be orthogonal (i.e., their dot product shall be zero)
- The row and column direction cosine vectors shall be normal (i.e., the dot product of each direction cosine vector with itself shall be unity)
Exclude tags that violate any constraints, to ensure proper loading of data.
Example Tag Violation:
Invalid Tag | Issue |
|---|---|
“ImagePositionPatient”: etups are usually a specific type of [series setup](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://docs.centaurlabs.com/docs/files-manifest%23series-videos-etc&sa=D&source=doc | ImagePositionPatient (link ) Violates: The row and column direction cosine vectors shall be orthogonal ( i.e., their dot product shall be zero) The row and column direction cosine vectors shall be normal (i.e., the dot product of each direction cosine vector with itself shall be unity) |
“ImageOrientationPatient”: ps are usually a specific type of series setup, meaning a series must have sequential continuous index numbers to upload t, | ImagePositionPatient (link ) Violates: The row and column direction cosine vectors shall be orthogonal ( i.e., their dot product shall be zero) The row and column direction cosine vectors shall be normal (i.e., the dot product of each direction cosine vector with itself shall be unity) |
Rendering Requirements
- RescaleIntercept, RescaleSlope: Pixel value rescaling
- WindowCenter, WindowWidth: Display windowing parameters
MPR Requirements
- ImagePositionPatient: Position information
- ImageOrientationPatient: Orientation information
- FrameOfReferenceUID: For spatial alignment
DICOM Syntaxes
We currently support the following DICOM syntaxes:
- Implicit VR Little Endian
- Explicit VR Little Endian
- Explicit VR Big Endian
- JPEG Baseline (Process 1)
- JPEG Lossless, Nonhierarchical (Processes 14)
- JPEG Lossless, Non-Hierarchical, First-Order Prediction (Process 14 election Value 1]) )
- JPEG 2000 Image Compression (Lossless Only)
- JPEG 2000 Image Compression
- RLE Lossless
If you use a different syntax, please inform your project manager so we can prepare our systems accordingly!
DICOM Metadata
Below is a comprehensive list of all the metadata we store from DICOMs:
- StudyInstanceUID
- SeriesInstanceUID
- SOPInstanceUID
- Modality
- Columns
- Rows
- InstanceNumber
- SOPClassUID
- PhotometricInterpretation
- BitsAllocated
- BitsStored
- PixelRepresentation
- SamplesPerPixel
- Pixel spacing
- RescaleIntercept
- RescaleSlope
- NumberOfFrames
- HighBit
- FrameOfReferenceUID
- ImageType
- WindowCenter
- WindowWidth
- ImageOrientationPatient
- ImagePositionPatient
Updated 3 months ago