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From: Jonathan_Elion@brown.edu (Jon Elion)
Subject: ACC's DICOM Software Released
Message-ID: <1995Apr6.001949.17570@cs.brown.edu>
Originator: jle@rufus
Sender: news@cs.brown.edu
Organization: Brown University Institute for Medical Computing
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 1995 00:19:49 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.protocols.dicom:653 sci.med.telemedicine:5058 sci.image.processing:13806 sci.med.informatics:1845

========================================================================
         DISC '95: DIGITAL INTERCHANGE STANDARDS FOR CARDIOLOGY
             Sponsored by the American College of Cardiology
                    in Cooperation with ACR and NEMA
========================================================================

              *** PUBLIC DOMAIN RELEASE OF THE SOFTWARE ***

The National Electrical Manufacturer's Association (NEMA) and the
American College of Cardiology (ACR) have previously developed a
standard for Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine, known as
"DICOM".  The American College of Cardiology (ACC) has been working
with these groups to extend this standard to accomodate the storage
and exchange of digital coronary angiograms and echocardiograms.

A large-scale demonstration of the exchange of cardiac images was held
with 29 participating vendors.  This demonstration, called "DISC 95"
(Digital Interchange Standards for Cardiology), was held at the 44th Annual
Scientific Sessions of the ACC in New Orleans in March, 1995.  The demo
includes both cardiac angiographic and echocardiographic images (30 images
each) on CD-ROM.  Most "images" are multi-frame images (cine runs); there
is about 550 MB of image data total.

The software to support the demonstration was written by the Brown
University Institute for Medical Computing, and was supplied to
participating vendors to assist with their preparation for DISC '95.  The
software is now being placed in the public domain to further promote the
use and spread of the standards.

The software consists of 3 programs:

   build.c - Reads specifications for a DICOM file from an ASCII source
	     (or "script") file and, like a symbolic assembler, creates
             the binary version of the DICOM file.

   parse.c - This program is like a dis-assembler.  It reads the binary
	     version of a DICOM file and creates the correspnding "script"
	     source file (pixel and LUT data is written into separate
	     files).  The output of PARSE is compatible with BUILD.  This
	     allows files to the analyzed, then edited with a simple
	     ASCII editor, then re-built.

    demo.c - A plain vanilla version of a program intended to be the
             starting point for display programs.  It parses and allows
             interaction with DICOMDIR, and handles parsing and JPEG
             decompression of the image file.  X-Ray Angiographic files
	     use lossless JPEG decompression (software for doing the
	     decompression is also included).

There is also fairly comprehensive documentation written in WordPerfect
(and saved in several WordPerfect and Word formats).

NOTE: THIS SOFTWARE IS TARGETED FOR PROGRAMMERS, DEVELOPERS, AND DICOM
IMPLEMENTORS.  WHILE THE DEMO.C PROGRAM PROVIDES A "PLAIN VANILLA"
VIEW OF THE INFORMATION ON THE DISC95 CD-ROM, IT IS NOT INTENDED TO
BE A GENERAL-PURPOSE VIEWER FOR CONSUMERS, AND WILL NOT HELP YOU
TO VIEW IMAGES FROM THE DISC '95 CD-ROM ON YOUR HOME COMPUTER!!

The software is available by anonymous FTP from ftp.xray.hmc.psu.edu
(150.231.1.230) in the subdirectory /dicom_software/Brown.  Thanks to
Dave Channin and the folks at Penn State for helping with the software
distribution.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
                       Jon Elion MD, Director
        Brown University Institute for Medical Computing
                      Jonathan_Elion@brown.edu
                         FAX: (401) 331-8501
-----------------------------------------------------------------

