RUBY DICOM

Ruby DICOM is a small and simple library for handling DICOM in Ruby. DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) is a standard for handling, storing, printing, and transmitting information in medical imaging. It includes a file format definition and a network communications protocol. Ruby DICOM supports reading from, editing and writing to this file format. It also features basic support for select network communication modalities like querying, moving, sending and receiving files.

INSTALLATION

gem install dicom

REQUIREMENTS

Ruby 1.9.2 (if you are still on Ruby 1.8, gems up to version 0.9.1 can be used)

BASIC USAGE

Load & Include

require 'dicom'
include DICOM

Read, modify and write

# Read file:
dcm = DObject.read("some_file.dcm")
# Extract the Patient's Name value:
dcm.patients_name.value
# Add or modify the Patient's Name element:
dcm.patients_name = "Anonymous"
# Remove a data element from the DICOM object:
dcm.pixel_data = nil
# Write to file:
dcm.write("new_file.dcm")

Modify using tag strings instead of dictionary method names

# Extract the Patient's Name value:
dcm.value("0010,0010")
# Modify the Patient's Name element:
dcm["0010,0010"].value = "Anonymous"
# Delete a data element from the DICOM object:
dcm.delete("7FE0,0010")

Extracting information about the DICOM object

# Display a short summary of the file's properties:
dcm.summary
# Print all data elements to screen:
dcm.print
# Convert the data element hierarchy to a nested hash:
dcm.to_hash

Handle pixel data

# Retrieve the pixel data in a Ruby Array:
dcm.pixels
# Load the pixel data to an numerical array (NArray):
dcm.narray
# Load the pixel data to an RMagick image object and display it on the screen:
dcm.image.display

Transmit a DICOM file

# Send a local file to a server (PACS) over the network:
node = DClient.new("10.1.25.200", 104)
node.send("some_file.dcm")

Start a DICOM server

# Initiate a simple storage provider which can receive DICOM files of all modalities:
s = DServer.new(104, :host_ae => "MY_DICOM_SERVER")
s.start_scp("C:/temp/")

Log settings

# Change the log level so that only error messages are displayed:
DICOM.logger.level = Logger::ERROR
# Setting up a simple file log:
l = Logger.new('my_logfile.log')
DICOM.logger = l
# Create a logger which ages logfile daily/monthly:
DICOM.logger = Logger.new('foo.log', 'daily')
DICOM.logger = Logger.new('foo.log', 'monthly')

IRB Tip

When working with Ruby DICOM in irb, you may be annoyed with all the information that is printed to screen, regardless if you have set verbose as false. This is because in irb every variable loaded in the program is automatically printed to the screen. A useful hack to avoid this effect is to append “;0” after a command. Example:

dcm = DObject.read("some_file.dcm") ;0

RESOURCES

COPYRIGHT

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see www.gnu.org/licenses/ .

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Name: Christoffer Lervåg
Location: Norway
Email: chris.lervag [@nospam.com] @gmail.com

Please don’t hesitate to email me if you have any feedback related to this project!