[OT] DICOM 4 Harbour

[xProgrammer]

Just to let those few who are interested in DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) that as time permits I have been making progress with my Harbour based DICOM software. To date I have code that will do the following:

Parse a DICOM file (currently in explicit VR little endian syntax only but adding other syntaxes would be easy)

Send an A-ASSOCIATE-RQ PDU, receive and analyse the returned A-ASSOCIATE-AC PDU or A-ASSOCIATE-RJ PDU, send an A-RELEASE_RQ PDU wait for the returned A_RELEASE-AC PDU and terminate the DICOM Association. Thus you can confirm connectivity with any DICOM compliant device that supports the A-ASSOCIATE service (which pretty much any DICOM device should).

Whilst there is still quite a way to go, progress has been pleasing given that this has had to be very much a part time project.

Happy to share code with anyone who is interested.

[Kleyber]

Congratulations for your job!! Very interesting.

Regards,

[Massimo Linossi]

Hi.
Is it possible to use this for receiving the request of a patients list and sending back the answer
to the RM Dicom machine ?
Thanks a lot.
Massimo.

[xProgrammer]

Hi Massimo, Kleyber

This is part of what is required to do that. All DICOM exchanges over a network start with an A-ASSOCIATE-RQ / A-ASSOCIATE-AC and finish with an A-RELEASE_RQ / A-RELEASE_RP.

To do what you want (and what I want) requires also the bit in the middle - command and data exchange using P-DATA-TF. I am now working towards that. But you can't get to that bit until you have the above working to create the DICOM Association. And I've only just got there. I was quite excited when I got my code working and could set up an association with a remote DICOM workstation over a VPN running across the internet.

I should also add that no matter how capable a particular DICOM implementation is, it can only do those operations that the other DICOM implementation also supports.

Regards
Doug / xProgrammer

[xProgrammer]

Just adding to my previous post. You possibly want to check out what SOP Classes your DICOM device supports. Not sure if you need / want:

1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.2.1.1 Patient Root Query/Retrieve - FIND
1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.2.1.2 Patient Root Query/Retrieve - MOVE
1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.2.1.3 Patient Root Query/Retrieve - GET

1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.32 General Purpose Worklist Management

or some other SOP Class(es)

If you don't have a statement of DICOM conformance my software will shortly be able to ascertain support (but will take longer to actually do).

Regards
xProgrammer

[Massimo Linossi]

Hi.
If you make something for receiving a request and sending back a list of patients, please give me a sign.
I can make the tests and buy your program/class.
My customer has just installed an RM machine, with Dicom system integrated.
Thanks a lot.
Massimo.