Best way to proceed with my Dicom Viewer

[jcferranti]

I need a little help!

I am developing a viewing DICOM application, similar to the KPacs. But I have a doubt about the best way to proceed.
I will implement the ability to import DICOM files with and without DICOMDIR but do not know the best way to do it. Copy the original file without modifications or I copy the whole dataset and pixel-data to a new file?
What is the best way to realiar the second option?
Thanks!

[Michael Onken]

Hi,

I am not sure whether I understand exactly what you mean by

Copy the original file without modifications or I copy the whole dataset and pixel-data to a new file?

. Do you mean you want to split the pixel data from the rest of the dataset and save both separately? Note that you usually need information from the non-pixel data data elements in order to interpret the pixel data correctly (e.g. Modality LUT, Windowing but also CT positional data in case you like to sort frames for display).

In general, you should at least somewhere keep a copy of the original file, i.e. do not alter any of its attributes or pixel data at all.

If you need to modify them (e.g. since they contain errors), you may copy the file for yourself and then alter the copy, or you patch those alterations into the file every time you work with the file. The latter is what most PACSes do (to my knowledge). In both cases you can re-produce the original dataset.

I never implemented a DICOM viewer so this may not be the final truth

Best,
Michael

[jcferranti]

I think citing an example is better.
The KPacs has the ability to import DICOM files for your database through the Filesystem tab.
So I can import a CD/DVD/e-mail data to KPacs database and store for backup and others.
I wanted to know the best way to do the same.
Copy the whole dataset feathers modifying the compression of the image, Iterate dataset, only I copy and rename the file?
private tags, copy or discard?
I want only one .dcm file, but was the best way to do?