DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) User Attributes

Readers: For information on the parameters in this dialog that are common to all readers, see:

Writers: For information on the parameters in this dialog that are common to all writers, see:

The DICOM user attribute types are listed below.

Tag Type

Corresponding DICOM Value Representation

Description

application_entity

AE

Application Entity tags store ASCII strings up to 16 characters in length.

age_string

AS

Age String tags store a string 4 characters.

  • nnnD
  • nnnW
  • nnnM
  • nnnY

The first 3 characters are a number, which may be padded with zeros on the left.

The last character is “D”, “W”, “M”, or “Y”. This indicates days, weeks, months, or years.

attribute_tag

AT

Attribute Tag tags are converted to a string representing a DICOM attribute tag.

A DICOM attribute tag is composed of a pair of 16-bit unsigned integers. For example: 0008|0005.

This is represented in FME as a string of characters in the format:

HHHH|hhhh

where “H” are hexadecimal characters of the first value and “h” are hexadecimal characters of the second value.

code_string

CS

Code String tags store ASCII strings up to 16 characters in length.

date

DA

Date tags store a date in FME date format.

YYYYMMD

(Year, Month, Day)

See Standard FME Date/Time Format.

decimal_string

DS

Decimal String tags store a fixed or floating point number as a string of characters.

Note: The prefix “decimal” describes the type of data in contained in the string, which is in contrast to long_string and short_string tags.

datetime

DT

Datetime tags convert datetimes in DICOM to FME datetime string format.

YYYYMMDDHHmmSS.mmm[(+|-)hh:mm]

(Year, Month, Day, Hour, Minute, Second, Milliseconds, optional timezone offset)

See Standard FME Date/Time Format.

float

FL

Float tags store single precision floating point values.

double

FD

Double tags store double precision floating point values.

integer_string

IS

Integer String tags store negative or positive integers as a string of characters.

Note: The prefix “integer” describes the type of data in contained in the string, which is in contrast to long_string and short_string tags.

long_string

LO

Long String tags are converted to UTF-8 strings up to 64 characters in length. Long String tags cannot contain newlines, nor the backslash character “\”.

Note: The prefix “long” describes the length of data contained in the string, which is in contrast to decimal_string and integer_string tags.

long_text

LT

Long Text tags are converted to UTF-8 strings up to 10240 characters in length.

other_byte_string

OB

Other Byte String tags store binary-encoded strings of unlimited length.

other_double_string

OC

Other Double String tags store binary-encoded strings of unlimited length. The binary string is an array of 64-bit floating point values.

other_float_string

 

OF

Other Float String tags store binary-encoded strings of unlimited length. The binary string is an array of 32-bit floating point values.

other_word_string

 

OW

Other Word String tags store binary-encoded strings of unlimited length. The binary string is an array of 16-bit words.

person_name

 

PN

Person Name tags are converted to UTF-8 strings comprised of name component groups.

Component groups are made up of 5 components separated by the “^” character.

(FamilyNameComplex)^(GivenNameComplex)^(MiddleName)^(NamePrefix)^(NameSuffix)

The first component group may be followed by its equivalent in one or more different writing systems, where each component group is separated by the equals sign “=”.

Example:

"Hong^Gildong=洪^吉洞=홍^길동"

short_string

 

SH

Short String tags are converted to UTF-8 strings up to 16 characters in length. Short String tags cannot contain newlines or the backslash character “\”.

Note: The prefix “short” describes the length of data contained in the string, which is in contrast to decimal_string and integer_string tags.

signed_long

 

SL

Signed Long tags store 32-bit signed integer values.

signed_short

 

SS

Signed Short tags store 16-bit signed integer values.

short_text

 

ST

Short Text tags are converted to UTF-8 strings up to 1024 characters in length.

time

TM

Time tags store a time in FME time format.

HHmmSS.mmm[(+|-)hh:mm]

(Hour, Minute, Second, Milliseconds,, optional timezone offset)

See Standard FME Date/Time Format.

unique_identifier

UI

Unique Identifier tags store ASCII strings up to 64 characters in length. These strings are a series of numeric components separated by the period “.” character.

unsigned_long

UL

Unsigned Long tags store 32-bit unsigned integer values.

unknown

UN

Unknown tags store binary-encoded strings of unlimited length.

unsigned_short

US

Unsigned Short tags store 16-bit unsigned integer values.

unlimited_text

UT

Unlimited Text tags are converted to UTF-8 strings of unlimited length.