dcmjs

JavaScript implementation of DICOM manipulation. This code is an outgrowth of several efforts to implement web applications for medical imaging.

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Note: this code is a work-in-progress and should not be used for production or clinical purposes

See live examples here

Goals

Overall the code should:

• Support reading and writing of correct DICOM objects
• Provide a programmer-friendly JavaScript environment for using and manipulating DICOM objects
• Include a set of useful demos to encourage correct usage of dcmjs and modern DICOM objects
• Encourage correct referencing of instances and composite context when creating derived objects
• Current target is modern web browsers, but a set of node-based utilities also makes sense someday.

Architectural goals include:

• Use modern JavaScript programming methods (currently ES6) but avoid heavy frameworks
• Leverage modern DICOM standards but avoid legacy parts
• Support straightforward integration with multiple JavaScript deployment targets (browser, node, etc) and frameworks.

Parts of DICOM that dcmjs will focus on:

• Enhanced Multiframe Images
• Segmentation Objects
• Parametric Maps
• Structured Reports

Parts of DICOM that dcmjs will not focus on:

• DIMSE (legacy networking like C-FIND, C-MOVE, etc)
• Physical Media (optical disks)

Status

Currently dcmjs is an early-stage development experiment.

// To install latest _stable_ release
npm install --save dcmjs

// To install latest code merged to master
npm install --save dcmjs@dev

Implemented

• Bidirectional conversion to and from part 10 binary DICOM and DICOM standard JSON encoding (as in DICOMweb)
• Bidirectional convertion to and from DICOM standard JSON and a programmer-friendly high level version.

In development

• Creation of (correct) enhanced multiframe DICOM objects from legacy image objects
• Creation of (correct) derived DICOM objects such as Segmentations and Structured Reports

TODO

• Create a test suite of input and output DICOM objects
• Test interoperability with other DICOM implementations
• Add documentation

History

• 2014
  • DCMTK cross compiled to javascript at CTK Hackfest. While this was useful and powerful, it was heavyweight for typical web usage.
• 2016
  • A Medical Imaging Web Appliction meeting at Stanford and follow-on hackfest in Boston helped elaborate the needs for manipulating DICOM in pure Javascript.
  • Based on DICOM Part 10 read/write code initiated by Weiwei Wu of OHIF, Steve Pieper developed further features and examples of creating multiframe and segmentation objects discussed with the community at RSNA
• 2017
  • At NA-MIC Project Week 25 Erik Ziegler and Steve Pieper worked with the community to define some example use cases to mix the pure JavaScript DICOM code with Cornerstone and CornerstoneTools.
• 2018
  • Work continues to develop SR and SEG support to OHIFViewer allow interoperability with DICOM4QI

Support

The developers gratefully acknowledge their reseach support:

• Open Health Imaging Foundation (OHIF)
• Quantitative Image Informatics for Cancer Research (QIICR)
• Radiomics
• The Neuroimage Analysis Center
• The National Center for Image Guided Therapy