Michael Gerhard Kaul, Presenter: Nothing to Disclose

Thomas Ernst DIPLPHYS, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Gerhard B. Adam MD, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

DicomSort´n´Select offers a fast and selective access on DICOM files by using the standardized DICOM-tags. This is mainly of interest for scientist, since commonly user interfaces of DICOM viewers do not provide sorting by technical specifications like flip angles, echo time.

The development of an operation system independent platform to sort, select und extract of DICOM data files by user specific attributes with the option to provide technical data from the DICOM-headers to further ImageJ-plugins.

A multistage plugin for the Java based image processing software ImageJ (NIH, USA) was developed. First stage: Selection of the sorting criteria in form of DICOM-Tags. Second stage: Grouping of the DICOM files in stacks by one of the sorting criteria. Third stage: Selection by concrete values of the DICOM-tags. The generated stacks can then be opened as image stacks. Optionally, the involved DICOM files can be renamed following the values of the chosen sorting criteria or converted to other image formats. All performed interactive selections can be automatized by using a config-file. An interface is realized by the declaration of further DICOM-tags of interests to provide requested technical information by third party plugins. For instance, if the DICOM-tag for echo time was declared in the interface a T2 relaxation time analysis can be performed by one or all of the sorted and selected stacks which contain time series of images with increasing echo times.

The software was tested with magnetic resonance imaging data sets from Philips and Siemens scanners. The plugin natively supports multi core processors for the fast collection of sub divided file system structures. The workflow can be automatized for different purposes by loadable config-files. Third party plugins can use the interface to perform data procession. Plugins for T2(*)-, T1-relaxation time and diffusion mapping (ADC) are already existent.

Kaul, M, Ernst, T, Adam, G, DicomSort´n´Select: An ImageJ Plugin for Sorting, Selecting of DICOM Images Providing a Technical Data Interface for Other ImageJ Plugins.  Radiological Society of North America 2011 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, November 26 - December 2, 2011 ,Chicago IL. http://archive.rsna.org/2011/11005599.html