View source for DICOM:Database

Local databases to organize DICOM header information are often used in medical image applications and workstations.  This page is used to organize information and examples.

== History ==

Bill started [http://massmail.spl.harvard.edu/public-archives/slicer-devel/2010/004323.html a thread on the slicer-devel mailing list] about improving dicom parsing performance.  [http://massmail.spl.harvard.edu/public-archives/slicer-devel/2010/004364.html This message] includes a sample sql database schema as an attachment.

At the [http://www.na-mic.org/Wiki/index.php/Events:CTK-Pre-Hackfest-2010 CTK meeting], Marco Nolden showed a similar approach has been followed as part of the [http://mitk.org MITK project] using [http://dicom.offis.de DCMTK] to fill an [http://sqlite.org SQLite] database.

== Example Data ==

* [http://github.com/pieper/CTK/blob/master/Libs/DICOM/Core/Resources/dicom-schema.sql MITK DICOM Schema]
* [http://github.com/pieper/CTK/blob/master/Libs/DICOM/Core/Resources/dicom-sample.sql Dump of example database created with schema above]
* [[file:dicom-database-examples-2010-03-09.zip| Sample DICOM data used to create the database dump]]
* [[Slicer3/strawman DICOM Schema|Lorensen's strawman sqlite DICOM schema]]

== Considerations ==

* It would be ideal if the database schema was standardized and could be used with any DICOM toolkit (GDCM and/or DCMTK).

* The MITK schema is nice because it uses the standard DICOM field names for the columns, for example PatientsUID, ModalitiesInStudy, etc).

* Eventually we could create an ITK IO Factory plugin reader that an read when given an SQLite filename and a query string that specifies a volume.  With something like: "/tmp/dicom.db:SeriesUID=1.2.3...."  If the SQL database kept the width, height, and pixel data offset then the files could be read quickly without re-parsing.

* Marco plans to contribute a cleaned up version of the MITK code to the [http://github.com/pieper/CTK CTK git repository].

* Bill proposes [[Slicer3/DICOM import mechanism|a background DICOM import mechanism]].