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Table of Contents

When companies maintain web-sites or other internet resources of their own, a link is provided in this directory purely as a service to the DICOM community in general. (Nevertheless, please alert the editors of missing or "dead" links.)

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DICOM Source Code Implementations for public domain release

Stand alone DICOM Tool Kits from Commercial sources

Stand alone DICOM Services and Test Tools

Books and Papers about DICOM

DICOM Training

DICOM Removable Media, Fixed Disk and Multi-media Implementations

DICOM Translator & Black Boxes

DICOM Conformance Statement Resources

Company and Institution Contacts for Information on DICOM Resources

DICOM Source Code Implementations for public domain release

The following is a list of software providers currently offering public DICOM implementations. The value of these implementations is that they can be used as an independent test bed for verification of at least the standard DICOM services and usage.



Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology

This is the premier of the publicly available DICOM implementations, because much money and time has been invested to insure demonstrable DICOM applications would work together. Most of the developers of DICOM have contributed funds to this project through the RSNA, which sponsored demonstrations at InfoRAD. Mallinckrodt also invested much beyond the outside financial resources that helped support this development.

Few DICOM services have been missed in this implementation. Please contact Steve Moore for more information.

Additional Contact Information

The University of Oldenburg

This implementation was developed, starting with an early version of Mallinckrodt's 1993 project. It was then developed in parallel with Mallinckrodt for use at the 1993 RSNA demonstration in InfoRAD. An even more advanced version was used at the EuroPACS'94 demonstration.

We believe this implementation is available to the European Community companies and institutions. It has been funded by CEN/TC-251 Working Group 4. It has been enhanced regularly since 1994 for other European radiology demonstrations. For more information, contact Andy Hewett at the University of Oldenburg.

Contact Information

You can also access the University Computing Centre anonymous FTP server's DICOM directory for its selection of related files.

University of California Davis Medical Center

The USDMC has a version of a DICOM Network Transport library available: a completely independent C++ implementation, which has no common code base with the Mallinckrodt distribution.

The DICOM libraries are available for anonymous FTP downloading, which includes available documentation.

The following plaforms and compilers are currently supported:

The transport library has been tested against the Dejarnette, Mallinckrodt, GE and Phillips implementations.

For additional information, contact Mark Oskin at the UC-Davis Medical Center.

Pennsylvania State University

A version of the 1993 Mallinckrodt software was converted to run over an ISO stack rather than TCP/IP. It was implemented to show how the DICOM standard could be implemented with an ISO network protocol.

This as well as other related tools are publicly available through anonymous FTP and the World Wide Web.

Please contact Fred Prior for additional information.

Contact Information

Stand alone DICOM Tool Kits from Commercial sources

Commercially available DICOM tool kits, which are offered as stand alone products rather than in conjunction with one of the vendors other products, may be available from more than the listed companies, but we haven't been able to find them as of this writing.

The primary advantage of the commercial tool kits is their ability to be serviced and maintained for continued compatibility with the ever evolving DICOM standard. Many medical imaging vendors have decided to utilize these commercial products so they can continue to focus their resources to the greatest advantage, normally in the area in which they specialized before DICOM was on the scene.

We have edited the manufacturers' descriptions for each of the three tool kits described below to give a flavor for the level of tool kits available to the user. Please call the company directly for a complete description.

DeJarnette Research Systems

The AN/API developer's tool-kit has the ability to support DICOM Parts 1 -10, including Part 9 which covers the 50 Pin Point to Point interface. The AN/API libraries operate on any 16, 32, or 64 bit big or little endian processor and automatically handle byte ordering of the attributes sent and received.

Operating system support is forever being expanded to meet the requirements of the medical imaging community, but currently MS-DOS, Windows, Windows/NT, OS/2, SunOS, Solaris, OSF, IRIX, HPUX, Macintosh System 7, VRTX, and pSOS are supported.

Libraries can be used as needed to ensure compact modules to meet the applications needs. Depending on the operating system the size will vary, but the typical memory requirements for a library is 30 Kb.

The AN/API allows flexible configuration of DICOM requirements that can be applied to the entire application or a single association. Due to its extensive support of data set encoding, the AN/API tool-kit is flexible enough to provide support for older versions of the ACR/NEMA standard as well as compatible standards.

Contact Information

Merge Technologies Incorporated

The MergeCOM-3 Advanced DICOM Integrator's Tool Kit has been implemented to handle anything that is defined in Parts 1 - 8 and 10 - 12 of the DICOM standard. It is highly configurable, so that resources can be wisely used in both resource-rich systems as well as systems with limited resources. The API is simple to use but has the power to utilize all of the features built into DICOM, including removable media.
System, Application, and Service Profiles gives the developer maximum flexibility for configuring and defining the finished application environment. In addition, the ability to log run-time errors in varying amounts of detail lets the developer debug new applications quickly and field-service applications fast and accurately.

The Run-Time Data Dictionary is a binary file generated by the database oriented data dictionary which contains all DICOM attributes and their respective data types. This can be used in conjunction with a Message Object Database to encode, decode, and validate messages dynamically, depending upon the application's requirements. This implementation also allows developers to extend or define private SOPs (Service-Object Pairs) if required.

It is object-oriented in design, written in ANSI-C, and follows the POSIX model to allow for maximum portability and scalability over a wide range of platforms and operating systems. Currently, the MergeCOM-3 Advanced Integrator's Toolkit has been ported for MS-DOS, Windows, Windows/NT, OS/2, Macintosh System 7, many UNIX flavors, VMS, OS/9, RMX-II and RMX-III, among others.

Contact Merge Technologies for more information.

Contact Information

Stand alone DICOM Services and Test Tools

A.L.I.

UltraPACS is currently highly compliant with the approved sections (1-9,10) of the DICOM standard. However, as DICOM 3.0 is an evolving standard, it is important to understand that the simple statement that one is currently fully compliant overly simplifies the state of DICOM implementation within the industry. DICOM is not yet a "plug-and-play" standard.

DICOM Image Gateway can send or receive a patient study in any modality (CT, MRI, etc.) to or from any other external DICOM compliant system including specific control information such as measurement information, etc.

DICOM Print Support can send images or complete cases to any DICOM compliant printer along with control information such as page format, contrast, brightness, etc. (Postscript printer interface is also available.)

DICOM Query can access patient information from any DICOM query server to obtain scheduling or demographics.

DICOM Storage can write DICOM image storage objects as files onto magnetic and optical media based on the draft DICOM storage standard (subject to modification to comply with the final standard).

DICOM to HL-7 Interface can query information to or from an HL-7 compliant Hospital or Radiology Information System (HIS / RIS) and incorporate that information into a DICOM format . This is currently in progress.

Contact Information

Mitra Imaging Incorporated

Mitra is an Ontario corporation specializing in the development of software and system components for medical imaging and information management. To view the company's website, select "Mitra Imaging Incorporated" above.

Contact Information

Pennsylvania State University

A DICOM Query/Retrieve Application linked to an X-Windows display tool is available.

A DICOM Conformance testing tool to Validate Conformance Statements might be a very nice tool for customers that want to buy DICOM in their products.

All tools will be publicly available via Anonymous FTP and World Wide Web (WWW).

Contact Information

Books and Papers about DICOM

This is an evolving set of hardcopy information available on DICOM. We hope this eventually becomes a directory of books, papers, and articles on DICOM, along with critiques from both the users and developers of DICOM implementations. Please alert the editors of any other resources you're aware of.

• General Electric Medical Systems

  Buying Imaging Products with a DICOM Interface - Made Easy
  by Donald E. Van Syckle, Teresa Sippel-Schmidt, Charles R. Parisot

  General Electric Medical Systems, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
  
  General Electric Medical Systems, Buc Cedex, France
  (see General Electric Medical Systems under Company and Institution Contacts)

  
  

• National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA)

  Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) Standard
  Office of Publications
  2102 L Street, N.W.
  Washington, D.C. 20037 U.S.A.
  

  
  

• Pennsylvania State University

  A DICOM User's Conformance Statement of Requirements
  by Fred Prior
  

  
  

• Philips Medical Systems

  A DICOM Cookbook (Chapters 1&2)
  DICOM in a Nutshell (slide presentation)

  Philips Medical Systems (PMS)
  (see Philips Medical Systems under Company and Institution Contacts)

  
  

DICOM Training

Merge Technologies Incorporated

Offers customized DICOM training through their MergeLINK DICOM Consulting Service, which offers 1 Day and 3 Day formal training classes. (You may Contact MergeLINK directly through email, or contact Merge Technologies for more information.)

Removable Media, Fixed Disk and Multi-media Implementations

Austrailian Computing and Communications Institute (ACCI)

Scalable Medical Imaging Server (SMIS)

This imaging server allows DICOM V3.0 modalities and viewers to store and retrieve images.

Contact Information

Marium Hospital

Public Domain Exchangeable Media

- Software for CD/R Readers and Writers
- Will support DICOM Directories and File Meta Info
- X-Ray Angio IOD support
- Ultra Sound IOD support.

Contact Information

Medcon Limited

DCS - DICOM CD-R Cardiology Station

DCS automatically records images and writes them to the computer's hard drive. A DICOM gateway produces DICOM digital output written to CD or transferred via an ATM fiber optic network for local connections.

Contact Information

University of Geneva

PAPYRUS V3.0 for DICOM with encoding via the specifications defined in PS 3.10 (Part 10) of DICOM.

Contact Information

DICOM Translators & "Black Boxes"

I have included this category, even though it includes hardware, because these products allow for DICOM to be implemented with imaging equipment that is currently not DICOM or may never be DICOM because of vintage. These products allow DICOM a quick start, relatively speaking, in the world of a currently installed imaging equipment base. Without these "Black Boxes" only new and upgraded equipment would be able to be involved in the world of DICOM interoperability.

These are PC, Macintosh, and low end workstation engines which either have the ability to translate a proprietary medical imaging protocol to/from DICOM or translate DICOM to/from some other standard protocol, such as HL7. All of these "Black Boxes" should be required to have DICOM Conformance Statements that very clearly define how they function and to which DICOM service(s) they conform.

DeJarnette Research Systems

Contact DeJarnette directly for more information on their products.

Contact Information

Merge Technologies Incorporated

Merge has "Black Boxes" that are known to most users as "Merge Boxes", but which are really in a product line called MVPs (Multi-Vendor Protocol converters). A sub-group of this product line is devoted to Input and Output DICOM translators. It allows the installed base of a large number of CT and MR scanners to output their proprietary protocol an MVP, which in turn uses DICOM to connect and transfer the image information via the Storage Service Class as an SCU.

Please call Merge (email - sales@merge.com) for information as to specifically which devices in the existing base of medical imaging equipment can have DICOM interoperability via a "Merge Box".

Contact Information

SECTRA-Imtec AB is one of Europe's largest independent suppliers of medical image systems for PACS (Picture Archival and Communication Systems), including DICOM interfaces to modalities and laser cameras.

Contact Information

Available DICOM Conformance Statement Resources

The following are links to some on-line DICOM Conformance Statement resources. The DICOM Conformance Statement is an important part of communicating a product's implementation of DICOM, and the level of its adherence to the DICOM standard. Unless expressly noted to the contrary, all information here is wholly maintained by (and the responsibility of) each respective entity, and is by no means guaranteed by the maintainers of this page.