Working with DICOM Annotations

LEADTOOLS DICOM Class Library provides advanced annotation support for users who want to work with the "Graphic Annotation Module" and the "Grayscale Softcopy Presentation State" IOD, which let you display and manipulate graphic and text annotations.

The DICOM standard defines the "Graphic Annotation Module" which describes the attributes of vector graphics and text annotations that shall be made available by a display device to be applied to an image. LEADTOOLS offers a number of methods to manipulate DICOM graphic and text annotations and the related attributes which are part of the "Grayscale Softcopy Presentation State" IOD.

DicomDataSet.GetPresentationStateInformation and DicomDataSet.SetPresentationStateInformation can be used to retrieve and update the values of the elements that describe the "Presentation State Module" respectively. The following methods can be used to manage the set of referenced images under the "Referenced Series Sequence" (0008,1115) in the "Presentation State Module":

LEADTOOLS also offers an extensive set of methods to manipulate the "Graphic Layer Module". This Module defines the characteristics of the layers in which graphic annotations, text annotations, curves and overlays can be rendered. A new layer can be created by calling DicomDataSet.CreateLayer, and named by calling DicomDataSet.SetLayerName. Once a layer has been created, you can call DicomDataSet.GetLayerInformation and DicomDataSet.SetLayerInformation to retrieve and update the values of the elements that describe the layer attributes respectively. A layer can be removed by calling either DicomDataSet.RemoveLayerByIndex or DicomDataSet.RemoveLayerByName. DicomDataSet.RemoveAllLayers will remove all layers in the Data Set. Some of the other class members which can be used to maintain layers are:

A new graphic annotation object can be created by callingDicomDataSet.CreateGraphicObject. Once a graphic object has been created, you can call DicomDataSet.GetGraphicObjectInformation and DicomDataSet.SetGraphicObjectInformation to retrieve and update the values of the elements that describe the object attributes respectively. Some of the other methods which can be used to manipulate graphic objects are:

A new compound graphic annotation can be created by calling DicomDataSet.CreateCompoundGraphic. Once a graphic object has been created, you can call DicomDataSet.GetCompoundGraphicInformation and DicomDataSet.SetCompoundGraphicInformation to retrieve and update the values of the elements that describe the object attributes respectively. Some of the other methods which can be used to manipulate graphic objects are:

A new text annotation object can be created by calling DicomDataSet.CreateTextObject. Once a text object has been created, you can call DicomDataSet.GetTextObjectInformation and DicomDataSet.SetTextObjectInformation to retrieve and update the values of the elements that describe the object attributes respectively. Some of the other methods which can be used to manipulate text objects are:

The "Referenced Image Sequence" (0008,1140) under the "Graphic Annotation Module" is used to define the set of images (SOP instances) to which a group of graphic and text annotations applies. LEADTOOLS offers the following methods to manipulate the items under that sequence:

The items in the "Graphic Annotation Sequence" (0070,0001) under the "Graphic Annotation Module" can be manipulated with the following methods:

To bring the DICOM annotation world into the LEADTOOLS annotation world, the toolkit offers a number of functions to convert DICOM annotations into LEADTOOLS annotations and vice versa.

To convert between DICOM Annotations and Leadtools.Annotations.AnnObject, use the Leadtools.Dicom.Annotations.dll assembly which includes the following methods:

To convert between DICOM Annotations and Leadtools.Annotations.Core.AnnObject, use the assembly Leadtools.Dicom.Annotations.Core.dll which includes the following methods: