Findscu vs. DICOM Service Class Specificastions (R-Tags)

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lukebo
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Findscu vs. DICOM Service Class Specificastions (R-Tags)

#1 Post by lukebo »

Hi everyone,
this might be a stupid question for all those DICOM-Pros out there but the following problem confuses me a lot:

I am trying to query a PACS to extract all CT-Dose Sheets and SRs from a certain day (and later from a certain time interval). For that purpose, I found a code example to use findscu in a script from the radiance software collection. They propose to query for series on the Study level like this and later filter the series by the identifiers of the dose sheets and then retrieve them (sounds logic, at least to me):

Code: Select all

findscu -S -k 0008,0052=SERIES -k 0008,0020=20170308 -k 0008,0030 -k 0008,0060=CT -k 0008,1030 -k 0010,0020 -k 0008,0050 -k 0020,0011 -k 0008,103E -k 0020,000D -k 0020,000E -k 0010,0020 pacs-server pacs-port -aet AET -aec AEC 
However this does not work. The pacs returns, that i supplied the wrong set of arguments. Taking a look at Chapter C.6.2.1.3, the DICOM Standard pt. 4 states, that one should use the same parameters as in the series level of the patient root model. It is my understanding, that these are the parameters from table C.6-3. Modality and Series Number are listet in the above code. I also tried this minimal version:

Code: Select all

findscu -S -k 0008,0052=SERIES -k 0008,0020=20170308 -k 0008,0060=CT -k 0020,0011 -k 0020,000E pacs-server pacs-port -aet AET -aec AEC
with the same result. It seems, that i am suffering from a major misunderstanding of these tables. Can somebody explain that to me?

Best regards and thanks a lot.

Michael Onken
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Re: Findscu vs. DICOM Service Class Specificastions (R-Tags

#2 Post by Michael Onken »

Hi,

for a query on series level you have to provide the "unique keys" of the upper levels. In Study ROOT, option -S, this is only the level STUDY with the unique key "Study Instance UID". So, add Study Instance UID to your query with the value of the Study you are interested in (there is wildcard to say "for all studies") and you probably will get results.

By the way, I did not check the query in details since also the "DICOM Pros" do no not know every DICOM element by tag ;) The command line is more readable for most people (including yourself, I guess) if you use tag names instead, e.g. findscu -S QueryRetrieveLevel=SERIES -k SeriesDate="20170308" ...

There is also a tutorial that shows usage of PACS-related DCMTK tools, including findscu.

Best regards,
Michael

J. Riesmeier
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Re: Findscu vs. DICOM Service Class Specificastions (R-Tags

#3 Post by J. Riesmeier »

Code: Select all

findscu -S -k 0008,0052=SERIES -k 0008,0020=20170308 -k 0008,0060=CT -k 0020,0011 -k 0020,000E pacs-server pacs-port -aet AET -aec AEC
You query on SERIES level but supply additional keys on STUDY level (e.g. "0008,0020" which is Study Date). Of course, this does not work. As Michael said: provide the Study Instance UID of the Study you are interested in and then add your Series-level keys...

lukebo
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed, 2017-03-08, 09:01

Re: Findscu vs. DICOM Service Class Specificastions (R-Tags

#4 Post by lukebo »

Thank you both very much for your fast replies. So do i understand it right, that my approach, to query for all CT series of a certain date with wildcarded StudyInstanceUID is not allowed like this?

Code: Select all

 findscu -v -S -k QueryRetrieveLevel=SERIES -k StudyInstanceUID=* -k SeriesDate=20170305 -k Modality=CT -k SeriesNumber=* IP PORT AET AEC 
Thank you very much for your help!

Michael Onken
DCMTK Developer
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri, 2004-11-05, 13:47
Location: Oldenburg, Germany
Contact:

Re: Findscu vs. DICOM Service Class Specificastions (R-Tags

#5 Post by Michael Onken »

Hi,

no, no such wildcard permitted. You have to "manually" iterate over all the studies by their StudyInstanceUID, that you find beforehand by querying on QueryRetrieveLevel=STUDY.

This is not due to findscu but a rule from the DICOM standard (see part 4 for the details...).

Best,
Michael

lukebo
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed, 2017-03-08, 09:01

Re: Findscu vs. DICOM Service Class Specificastions (R-Tags

#6 Post by lukebo »

Dear Michael,

thank you very much. I think i got an idea of what i have to do - But i have to think al little bit about all that in detail :)
Thank you!

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