Working with Unique Identifiers (UIDs)

A unique identifier identifies items such as Service-Object Pair Classes and images. There are a number of unique identifiers that are standard for the DICOM file format. In addition to the standard unique identifiers, user-defined unique identifiers may also be added. Please note that while user-defined unique identifiers will work within LEADTOOLS, in order for new unique identifiers to work across countries, sites, equipment, etc., you must contact the National Electrical Manufacturers Association.

LEADTOOLS maintains a table (or list) internally of all available unique identifiers, standard and user defined. In this documentation the table of available unique identifiers will be referred to as the UID Table. Also provided in this documentation is a table of the default values for the standard UIDs. To see these default values, refer to the Default UID Table.

LEADTOOLS provides a number of methods for maneuvering through and modifying the UID Table. All methods pertaining to the UID Table have the form xxxUID method or xxxUIDxxx method.

For maneuvering through the UID Table, LEADTOOLS provides the following methods:

MoveFirstUID method

MoveLastUID method

MovePrevUID method

MoveNextUID method

GetUIDCount method

To find specific items, based on either the unique identifier or an index into the table, use the FindUID method and the FindIndexUID method.

To insert new items in the UID Table, use the InsertUID method.

You can delete individual items from the table using the DeleteUID method, or you can delete all items from the table, using the ResetUID method.

To change the name of an item already in the table, use the SetUIDName method.

Finally, to reset the UID Table to the default values, use the DefaultUID method.

Whenever you access an item within the UID Table, the CurrentUID property is updated with the selected item.

For more information on UIDs, refer to An Overview of the DICOM File Format or the DICOM Standard.