DCMODIFY issues

[martinrame]

Hi, I'm trying to change the value of tag (0008,1060) but I can't.

This is the command I'm using:

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dcmodify -d -m "(0008,1060)=AAAA" nico.dcm

But, instead of replacing 0008,1060 value with "AAAA" I get this:

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(0008,0090) PN (no value available)                     #   0, 0 ReferringPhysicianName
(0008,1010) SH [ru0]                                    #   4, 1 StationName
(0008,1048) PN (no value available)                     #   0, 0 PhysiciansOfRecord
(0008,1050) PN [DANIEL^PASINI]                          #  14, 1 PerformingPhysicianName
(0008,1060) UN 91\00                                    #   2, 1 NameOfPhysiciansReadingStudy  <-- HERE'S THE PROBLEM
(0008,1070) PN [ALTIERI, ANGELA]                        #  16, 1 OperatorsName
(0008,1110) SQ (Sequence with explicit length #=0)      #   0, 1 ReferencedStudySequence

I reproduced this using 3.6.0 and 3.6.1, both on Ubuntu 11.10 64bits, dcmtk compiled from source.

P.S.: I also tried with -i instead of -m and got the same result.

Regards,
Leonardo

[Michael Onken]

Hi Leonardo,

that looks very weird.

I tried your line on a current linux kubuntu system (32 bit installation) with 3.6.0 installed and it gives a line like this in the following dump:

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(0008,1060) PN [AAAA]                                   #   4, 1 NameOfPhysiciansReadingStudy

So it works for me just fine. The same for an old Debian system (amd64 kernel) compiling and running DCMTK 3.6.1.

It is very weird that in your case the characters are disturbed and even more, that the datatype is not recognized any more (lists UN instead of PN). Did you modify your dictionary (dicom.dic) in any way? Is your console operating in a crazy character set mode? What happens if you do the same insertion into (0010,0010) (patient's name)?

Best regards,
Michael

P.S: Or is your dictionary not loaded at all? Set your DCMDICTPATH environment variable to the location of the dicom.dic file, e.g.

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export DCMDICTPATH=/your/path/to/dicom.dic

By default, every DCMTK binary looks withing the right place, i.e. depending on the install prefix you have chosen during DCMTK build. Per default this is (on kubuntu, at least) /usr/share/dcmtk/dicom.dic.

[martinrame]

There must be something wrong with images generated by this modality. If I delete the tag, then insert with new values, it works ok.

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dcmodify -d -e "(0008,1060)" -i "(0008,1060)=AAAA" nico.dcm

[Michael Onken]

If you like, send the image for analysis to dicom at offis dot de. We're always interested in DICOM curiosities (and fixes, if reasonable)

[martinrame]

Thanks, I've sent the file.

[nicolas_dicom]

Hi all,

I had the same problem. I tried to OVERWRITE next tag

(0008,1060) UN 34\00 # 2, 1 NameOfPhysiciansReadingStudy

But for some reason when this tag has a value like "34\00", dcmodify shows an error

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nicolas@nicolas:~/Escritorio$ dcmodify -d -i "(0008,1060)=HOLA" CR_1.dcm
I: Processing file: CR_1.dcm
I: Loading file into dataset manager: CR_1.dcm
D: DcmItem::checkTransferSyntax() TransferSyntax="Little Endian Explicit"
I: Getting dataset from loaded file: CR_1.dcm
I: Executing (option|path|value): i|(0008,1060)|HOLA
E: modifying tag in file CR_1.dcm: Corrupted data
I: Renamed backup file to original
I: ------------------------------------
E: There was 1 error

Sometimes there is no error message and the option " -i " does not take effect.


So what I did is next :

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dcmodify -v  -e "(0008,1060)" -i "(0008,1060)=DR NICOLAS" CR_1.dcm

That way I will erase the TAG with the value 34\00 to be able to insert the new one with the new value "DR NICOLAS" . But ...... What happen If the tag "(0008,1060)" does not exist ? We will see an error "TAG NOT FOUND" , so to avoid this message we can use the option " -imt "

-imt means :

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 other processing options:
    -imt  --ignore-missing-tags  treat 'tag not found' as success
                                 when modifying or erasing in datasets

So the complete sentence is like next :

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dcmodify -v -imt  -e "(0008,1060)" -i "(0008,1060)=DR NICOLAS" CR_1.dcm

That worked pretty good to me : )

Anyway I would to know what is wrong with those kind of files.
What this value means "" 34\00 ""

Please notice that

The option -imt is not available in the next dcmtk version
dcmodify v3.5.4 2005-12-20


So I had to update to the next version
dcmodify v3.6.0 2011-01-06


Regards,

Nicolás

[Michael Onken]

Hi Nicolas,

thanks for sharing the information. However, I really wonder about the initial error when you insert the tag; I was not able to reproduce it on our systems. If you find out in the future what causes this issue, post it to this thread please.

Best regards,
Michael

[nicolas_dicom]

Hi Michael,

Ok.


Will have to read (Part 5: Data Structures and Encoding)


(0008,1060) UN 0a\00 # 2, 1 NameOfPhysiciansReadingStudy
(50f1,100a) UN 41\45\42\30\2e\35 # 6, 1 Unknown Tag & Data

UN means "Unknown"
A string of bytes where the encoding of the contents is unknown (see Section 6.2.2 of Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) - Part 5: Data Structures and Encoding).

Regards,

Nicolás

[Michael Onken]

Hi Nicolas,

yes, I know, that is why I asked whether you have problems with your DICOM dictionary that is used by DCMTK applications (thus also by dcmoidfy) for knowing the data type of each attribute.

Best,
Michael

[J. Riesmeier]

I guess that if the data element with tag (0008,1060) already exists in the dataset with VR "UN", it is not replaced by the correct VR during "dcmodify" processing (at least not when modifying with option -m).

[Michael Onken]

Hi Jörg,

good idea; however this is at least not the case for the test images provided by Nicolas.

Michael