Managing multiple medical image file formats and conventions

Scott C. Neu; Daniel J. Valentino; Keith R. Ouellette; Arthur W. Toga

doi:10.1117/12.481935

19 May 2003 Managing multiple medical image file formats and conventions

Scott C. Neu, Daniel J. Valentino, Keith R. Ouellette, Arthur W. Toga

Proceedings Volume 5033, Medical Imaging 2003: PACS and Integrated Medical Information Systems: Design and Evaluation; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.481935
Event: Medical Imaging 2003, 2003, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The management of medical images and their metadata is complicated by the continued use of different file formats (e.g., DICOM, ANALYZE, MINC) as well as the use of different conventions within the same standard (e.g., different DICOM metadata values assigned by different scanners). The conversion between image file formats often involves a complicated and non-unique value mapping that is usually influenced by the specific needs of users who interpret the meaning of each metadata value. We developed a general translation engine that (1) decodes common medical image file formats and organizes their metadata into trees, (2) determines the source that produced the image data using values in the metadata trees, (3) regroups image data from the same source, (4) maps values from a source metadata tree to a designated target metadata tree, and (5) encodes the image data from the target metadata tree into its corresponding file format. We also developed a graphical user interface that allows users to construct a visual representation of the mappings. The resulting application (the Debabeler) is a flexible tool for inspecting the contents of medical image files and defining user-specific translations between image file formats and conventions.

Citation Download Citation

Scott C. Neu, Daniel J. Valentino, Keith R. Ouellette, and Arthur W. Toga "Managing multiple medical image file formats and conventions", Proc. SPIE 5033, Medical Imaging 2003: PACS and Integrated Medical Information Systems: Design and Evaluation, (19 May 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.481935

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