.. index:: DICOM
.. index:: .dcm, .dicom

DICOM
===============================================================================

Extensions: .dcm, .dicom

Developer: `DICOM Standards Committee <https://www.dicomstandard.org/dsc/>`_


**Support**


BSD-licensed: |yes|

Export: |yes|

Officially Supported Versions: 

Reader: DicomReader (:bsd-reader:`Source Code <DicomReader.java>`, :doc:`Supported Metadata Fields </metadata/DicomReader>`)

Writer: DicomWriter (:bsd-writer:`Source Code <DicomWriter.java>`)

Freely Available Software:

- `List of converters and viewers <https://www.dclunie.com/medical-image-faq/html/part8.html#DICOMFileConvertorsAndViewers>`_ 
- `List of libraries/toolkits <https://www.dclunie.com/medical-image-faq/html/part8.html#DICOMToolkits>`_ 
- `Wikipedia's list of freeware health software <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freeware_health_software>`_

Sample Datasets:

- `David Clunie's list of DICOM image samples <https://www.dclunie.com/medical-image-faq/html/part8.html#DICOMImageSamples>`_ 
- `Whole Slide Images from DICOM Working Group 26 <ftp://medical.nema.org/medical/dicom/DataSets/WG26/>`_ 
- `NCI Imaging Data Commons Portal <https://portal.imaging.datacommons.cancer.gov/>`_, `download instructions <https://learn.canceridc.dev/data/downloading-data>`_ 
- `Converted Whole Slide Images <https://wsi.orthanc-server.com/orthanc/app/explorer.html>`_ 
- `DICOM sample image sets from OsiriX web site <http://www.osirix-viewer.com/resources/dicom-image-library/>`_

We currently have:

* `DICOM specification documents <https://www.dicomstandard.org/current/>`_ 
* numerous DICOM datasets (see above)
* `public sample images <https://downloads.openmicroscopy.org/images/DICOM/>`__



**Ratings**


Pixels: |Very good|

Metadata: |Very good|

Openness: |Outstanding|

Presence: |Outstanding|

Utility: |Very good|

**Additional Information**


* DICOM stands for "Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine". 
* Bio-Formats supports uncompressed, baseline JPEG, JPEG-2000 (lossy and lossless), and RLE lossless transfer syntaxes. 
* Support for reading and writing DICOM whole slide images (DICOM WSI format) was implemented through collaboration with `NCI Imaging Data Commons <https://datacommons.cancer.gov/repository/imaging-data-commons/>`_  and has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, under Task Order No. HHSN26110071 under Contract No. HHSN2612015000031. 

If you have a problematic DICOM file which you cannot send us for privacy 
reasons, please send us the exact error message and be aware that it may take 
several attempts to fix the problem blind. 

.. seealso:: 
  `DICOM homepage <https://www.dicomstandard.org/>`_
