Working with Value Representations

The Value Representation of a Data Element indicates the type of data that can be stored in the Value Field of the Data Element. There are a number of Value Representations that are standard for the DICOM file format. In addition to the standard Value Representations, user-defined Value Representations may also be added.

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

LEADTOOLS provides a number of methods for maneuvering through and modifying the Value Representation Table. All methods pertaining to the Value Representation Table are in the class DicomVRTable.

For maneuvering through the Value Representation Table, LEADTOOLS provides the following methods:

DicomVRTable.GetFirst

DicomVRTable.GetLast

DicomVRTable.GetPrevious

DicomVRTable.GetNext

DicomVRTable.GetCount

To find specific items, based on either the Value Representation or an index into the table, use DicomVRTable.Find and DicomVRTable.FindByIndex.

To insert new items in the Value Representation Table, call DicomVRTable.Insert.

You can delete individual items from the table using DicomVRTable.Delete, or you can delete all items from the table, using DicomVRTable.Reset.

To change the name of an item already in the table, call DicomVRTable.SetName.

To determine whether you have a valid Value Representation object, call DicomVRTable.Exists.

Finally, to reset the Value Representation Table to the default values, use DicomVRTable.Default.

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