Leadtools.Dicom Introduction

The LEADTOOLS Medical Imaging product line includes everything programmers need to develop a complete DICOM Medical Imaging Solution.

In medical environments, DICOM Standards facilitate the interoperability of medical imaging systems, related images, and related information. They define protocols for exchanging digital information between medical imaging equipment (such as CT and MR scanners) and other systems, with strong emphasis on diagnostic medical imaging as practiced in radiology, cardiology and related disciplines.

LEADTOOLS is committed to full and complete support for these industry-standard medical imaging protocols, providing programmers access to medical images retrieved from the widest possible variety of digital imaging modalities. LEAD's Medical Imaging toolkit includes the richest DICOM support in the industry.

The LEADTOOLS DICOM Class Libraries provides classes that enable you to incorporate DICOM support into your Windows applications. Basic DICOM features are included with the Medical Imaging toolkit. DICOM Security and Communications features are included with the DICOM PACS Framework.

Basic DICOM features

• Complete support for the DICOM 3 (2011) base standard, including:

  • Automatic DICOM file recognition, including Little-Endian/Big-Endian, Implicit/Explicit VR, and others.

  • All standard IOD classes and modalities such as CR, CT, MR, NM, US, RF, SC, and VL.

  • All standard data element tags.

  • All standard Value Representations (VRs), including Other Float String.

  • Ophthalmic Refractive Structured Reports.

  • Enhanced PET Image Storage SOP Class.

• Simplified data handling:

  • High-level and low-level functions for easy navigation and manipulation (insert, delete, modify) of Data Sets.  

  • Context Groups support. The use of Coded Concepts in DICOM facilitates unambiguous communication of concepts or terms. LEADTOOLS supports all the context groups defined by the DICOM Content Mapping Resource (DCMR) specified by PS 3.16 of the DICOM Standard.

  • Automatic addition of Item Delimitation Item (FFFE, E00D), and Sequence Delimitation Item (FFFE, E0DD)  (VR of "SQ").

  • Easy-to-manipulate ordinal positioning of Items (FFFE,E000).

  • Handling of repeating groups with multiple overlays and curve data.

  • Interface for private IODs.

  • Interface for Private tags.

• Robust image handling and processing:

  • Support for 1, 8, 10, 12, 16, 32-bit grayscale and 24-bit color images including:

  • JPEG (8, 10, 12, 16-bit Lossless grayscale, 8, 12 bit lossy grayscale, 24-bit lossless and lossy color)

  • JPEG2000 (including lossy and lossless 8-16 bit grayscale images and 24-bit color)

  • Photometric Interpretation (Monochrome1, Monochrome2, Palletized, RGB, ARGB, CMYK, YBR Full 422, YBR Full, YBR_RCT, and YBR_ICT).

  • Run Length

  • Uncompressed (1, 8, 10, 12, 16, 32 grayscale and 24 bit color)

  • Single or multi-frame images (compressed or uncompressed).

  • Encapsulated or Native encoding of pixel data for single or multi-frame compressed or uncompressed images.

• DICOM Annotation Object support. Store/retrieve DICOM annotations from a dataset and convert them to LEAD Annotation objects (and vice versa). Annotations can also be converted to regions of interest for additional statistical calculations and for storing to DICOM Presentation State.

• Easy implementation and high-level support for:

  • DICOM Encapsulated CDA (Clinical Document Architecture)

  • Raw Data encapsulation and retrieval

  • DICOM Encapsulated PDF

  • DICOM Waveforms, including electrocardiography (ECG), hemodynamic curve data, cardiac electrophysiology, and audio signals (WAV files).

  • DICOM Basic Directory. Create DICOMDIR in few lines of code.

  • Overlay Planes (including support for embedded overlay bit in pixel data).

  • Annotation and Graphics objects.

  • Shared Functional Groups and Per-Frame Functional Groups.

  • Change between transfer syntaxes with one function call.

  • DICOM Digital Signature Profile support to ensure that data has not been tampered with. Includes support for Base RSA, Creator RSA, and Authorization RSA digital signature profiles.   

  • Window Leveling. Window leveling is a linear conversion from stored pixel values to values to be displayed. LEADTOOLS can map the stored pixel values of interest, using a user defined color map (using a LUT or Palette) or linear gray LUT.

  • DICOM LUT/Overlay/Palette support. The high-level support for Modality LUT, VOI LUT, Palette Color Image in LEADTOOLS Medical Imaging means developers can implement DICOM Presentation states into an application with ease. LEADTOOLS can also apply the Modality LUT to the image data to further simplify image processing and statistical calculations.

  • Cut-and-paste source code and ready-to-use executables.

  • Multiple programming interfaces.

DICOM File Support

LEADTOOLS Medical Imaging provides COMPLETE support for the DICOM 2003 specification, including all standard IOD classes and modalities (CR, CT, MR, NM, US, RF, SC, VL, etc.) and complete DICOM Basic Directory support.

Key Features:

• Simply create/initialize complete Data Sets (all modules and elements) for any IOD class.

• Load and save Data Sets with or without headers, using any Transfer Syntax.

• Maneuver through a Data Set in tree or list mode.

• Search a Data Set.

• Insert and delete Data Set members.

• Get and set Data Element values.

• Get and set Data Set information.

• Get, set and insert single or multiframe images (compressed or uncompressed)

• Maneuver through basic directory Data Sets in tree or list mode.

• Insert and delete keys in a Basic Directory Data Set

• Get and set keys in a Basic Directory Data Set

• Maneuver through the IOD table.

• Search the IOD table.

• Insert and delete IODs.

• Modify an existing IOD.

• Set the default IOD table.

• Maneuver through the Data Element Tag table.

• Search the Data Element Tag table.

• Insert and delete tags.

• Modify an existing tag.

• Set the default Data Element Tag table.

• Maneuver through the UID table.

• Search the UID table.

• Insert and delete UIDs.

• Modify an existing UID.

• Set the default UID table.

• Maneuver through the Value Representation table.

• Search the Value Representation table.

• Insert and delete Value Representations.

• Modify an existing Value Representation.

• Set the default Value Representation table.

By adding the LEADTOOLS DICOM PACS Module to the LEADTOOLS Medical Imaging SDK, you get everything you need to create both client and server components of a picture archive and retrieval system (PACS) that can retrieve, distribute, and present medical images. The module includes full support for medical data communications, automated processing, and all DICOM client/server classes, command sets, and command elements.

Security features fully support secure transport connection profiles with authentication, whether encrypted or unencrypted.

This module supports all storage IOD classes and service classes defined in the  DICOM version 3 2011 base standard.

DICOM Communications Support

LEADTOOLS DICOM Communications provides COMPLETE support for DICOM communications, including all service classes (Verification, Storage, Query/Retrieve, Patient Management, etc.), and contains high-level communications functions simplifying the creation of DICOM client/server applications.

Key Features:

• • TCP/IP support for the communication of medical data using the DICOM 3.0 protocol.

  • Powerful high-level features that simplify the creation of DICOM client/server applications.

  • High-level functions for initiating and terminating associations (connections between DICOM applications).

  • Automatic processing for filling out PDU structures (Protocol Data Units).

  • Automatic and transparent conversion of DICOM Data Sets to/from the specific Transfer Syntax required by the associated Application Entities (the connected DICOM client(s) and server(s)).

  • Full Support for all Service Classes - Easy to implement all possible DICOM Service Classes as client (SCU) and/or server (SCP)

  • DICOM Verification Service Class

  • DICOM Storage Service Class

  • DICOM Query/Retrieve Service Class

  • DICOM Study Content Notification Service Class

  • DICOM Patient Management Service Class

  • DICOM Study Management Service Class

  • DICOM Results Management Service Class

  • DICOM Print Management Service Class

  • DICOM Media Storage Service Class

  • DICOM Storage Commitment Service Class

  • DICOM Basic Worklist Management Service Class

  • DICOM Queue Management Service Class

  • Direct support for PACS

• The Dicom Communication features also provide support for the following Command Sets, and their respective Command Elements.

  • C-STORE-REQUEST

  • C-STORE-RESPONSE

  • C-FIND-REQUEST

  • C-FIND-RESPONSE

  • C-GET-REQUEST

  • C-GET-RESPONSE

  • C-MOVE-REQUEST

  • C-MOVE-RESPONSE

  • C-CANCEL-REQUEST

  • C-ECHO-REQUEST

  • C-ECHO-RESPONSE

  • N-EVENT-REPORT-REQ

  • N-EVENT-REPORT-RSP

  • N-GET-REQUEST

  • N-GET-RESPONSE

  • N-SET-REQUEST

  • N-SET-RESPONSE

  • N-ACTION-REQUEST

  • N-ACTION-RESPONSE

  • N-CREATE-REQUEST

  • N-CREATE-RESPONSE

  • N-DELETE-REQUEST

  • N-DELETE-RESPONSE

DICOM Security

LEADTOOLS DICOM Security supports the Secure Transport Connection Profiles as specified in part 15 of the DICOM 2003 standard. Included in this add-on is support for TLS secure transport connection profile and ISCL Secure transport connection profile. The LEADTOOLS DICOM Security support eliminates the need of a VPN (virtual private network) for secure communication to comply with HIPAA regulations.

Use LEADTOOLS DICOM Security to encrypt sensitive data between DICOM nodes that you develop or existing nodes that support TLS or ISCL connection profiles.

HIPAA Privacy and Security required compliance by April 14, 2003 with standards for guarding data integrity, confidentiality and availability for any application that maintains or transmits individual health data. LEADTOOLS DICOM Security allows for quick, accurate, and complete implementation of security functions that will ensure an application connected to the internet will be HIPAA compliant. Three areas of risk as well as computer/entity authentication, confidentiality and data integrity are addressed by the LEADTOOLS DICOM Security for efficient 128-bit encryption implementation.

TLS Connection Profile

Area at Risk	LEADTOOLS Medical Security Solution
Computer/Entity Authentication	RSA Based Certificates
Confidentiality	DES Encryption & 3DES Encryption
Data Integrity	Secure Hash Algorithm Ciphersuite Negotiation
	MORE ABOUT TLS

ISCL Connection Profile

Area at Risk	LEADTOOLS Medical Security Solution
Computer/Entity Authentication	Three-pass-four-way Protocol
Confidentiality	DES-CBC Encryption. This is a 56-bit effective key length in a 64-bit key encryption cipher in block chaining mode.
Data Integrity	DESMAC (64-bit) and DES-encrypted MD5 (128-bit) message authentication codes.
	MORE ABOUT ISCL