Printing patient details on the film

Questions regarding the DCMPRINT library, a DCMTK add-on that implements a DICOM Print Management SCP and SCU

Moderator: Moderator Team

Post Reply
Message
Author
rameshsr
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue, 2006-11-07, 08:36

Printing patient details on the film

#1 Post by rameshsr »

I am able to successfully print the dicom image to the Print SCP. Now I would like to print the details such as Patient Name, Age, DOB, some MR Sequence details on the film. How do I do that using the given dcmtk tools?

Jörg Riesmeier
ICSMED DICOM Services
ICSMED DICOM Services
Posts: 2217
Joined: Fri, 2004-10-29, 21:38
Location: Oldenburg, Germany

#2 Post by Jörg Riesmeier »

You could either use the Basic Annotation Box SOP Class or render the textual information into the print bitmap before sending it to the server. However, support for annotation boxes is both quite limited and not very standardized. That means even if SCU and SCP support this optional SOP class, neither position nor visual appearance (font size, number of visible characters, etc.) of the textual annotations is standardized. You have to check the conformance statement of the particular application for details.

See also this posting.

Marco Eichelberg
OFFIS DICOM Team
OFFIS DICOM Team
Posts: 1437
Joined: Tue, 2004-11-02, 17:22
Location: Oldenburg, Germany
Contact:

#3 Post by Marco Eichelberg »

Most current DICOM modalities and workstations do not use the Basic Annotation Box SOP Class when printing images with overlays such as Patient's Name, Birthdate etc. Usually these are "burned" (rendered) into the bitmap before this bitmap is transmitted to the printer. This is the only reliable way that works with all printers, the only limitation being that low-res images might need to be upsampled before printing in order to provide sufficient resolution for the rendering of text as part of the bitmap. DCMTK (and DCMPRINT) provide no specific methods for such font rendering - you should use the routines of the underlying operating system or graphics library you are using. GUI toolkits usually provide appropriate functionality for this purpose, and it would be really useful to mimick the functionality of a GUI toolkit as part of DCMTK.

saketkulkarni
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed, 2007-12-19, 14:44

#4 Post by saketkulkarni »

But I am worried with this sop class as this is a optional sop class which print SCP may not support then it is on to SCU to burn this information on the image itself. How do I exactly do that.

Marco Eichelberg
OFFIS DICOM Team
OFFIS DICOM Team
Posts: 1437
Joined: Tue, 2004-11-02, 17:22
Location: Oldenburg, Germany
Contact:

#5 Post by Marco Eichelberg »

it is on to SCU to burn this information on the image itself. How do I exactly do that.
That very much depends on your application (and development environment). Essentially this is the same task as displaying patient's name, birthdate etc. in the corner of the image boxes (canvases) where you display the images on screen, the only difference being that for DICOM Print you want to do this with 12 bits/pixel (monochrome) instead of the typical 8 bits/pixel for the display application. Your favourite GUI toolkit may or may not appropriate routines for that. DCMTK/DCMPRINT will not help you here - it only provides the functionality for sending that bitmap to the printer once you have created it.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest