DICOM Element Tags
Contents
DICOM medical image files usually contain textual data as well as images. The data values are attributes of "DICOM Element Tags". A DICOM Element tag combines two hexadecimal codes, each four characters long. The first is the "group" code, the second is the "element" code. For example, 00100020 is the Patient's ID, and 00100030 is the Patient's Birth Date.
EscapeE enables you to define data-fields to extract data values from files and map them to the appropriate Element Tags when the file is exported in DICOM format. Most 'date' or 'time' values will be converted to DICOM format automatically using the options set in your system's Control Panel. If alphabetic month names (e.g. 23rd June 2016 or Jun/23/2016) have been used rather than numbers (e.g. 23/6/16) they will be converted provided they are in English, French, German, Portuguese or Spanish and EscapeE's language option has been set to match.
To set up a DICOM Tag
| 1. | Click and drag the mouse over the data to be extracted. |
| 2. | Select New... from the 'Fields' menu, or right-click and select New Field.... |
| 3. | Click the DICOM name... button on the Definitions page to display the DICOM fields dialog. |
| 4. | Set up the element Tag: select a Group from the drop-down list (e.g. 0010 concerns general information about the Patient) and a Tag name from the drop-down list (e.g. the Patient's Address is 1040). EscapeE has some features to help set up these pairings: |
| o | If you are defining a required element tag, you will find these listed in the Missing tags panel. Simply choose a name from this list and EscapeE will construct the Tag. |
| o | If you are defining a frequently used element tag, choose to show only Common tags in the 'Tag names' drop-down list instead of the All tags comprehensive (but tediously long) list. |
| 5. | Click OK. EscapeE names the new field, e.g. DICOM_00101040. |
| 6. | Click OK. EscapeE uses the named field to enter data into the matching field in the DICOM output. |
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