gdcmscu - Man Page

gdcmscu [OPTION]​.​.​.[OPERATION]​.​.​.HOSTNAME​.​.​.[PORT]​.​.​.

Execute a DICOM Q/R operation to HOSTNAME, using port PORT (104 when not specified)

The gdcmscu command line program is the tool to execute DICOM Query/Retrieve operation​. It supports:

• C-ECHO (SCU)
• C-FIND (SCU)
• C-STORE (SCU)
• C-MOVE (SCU/SCP) C-MOVE operation are executed using two different ports (one for the SCU and one for the SCP)​.

gdcmscu is a great tool to test if a DICOM server is up​. For example to send a C-ECHO to server dicom​.example​.com using port 104, use:

$ gdcmscu dicom​.example​.com

or if you prefer being explicit:

$ gdcmscu --echo dicom​.example​.com 104

Using basic security your DICOM server might require that you set the appropriate called AE-TITLE

$ gdcmscu --echo dicom​.example​.com 11112 --call SERVSCP

If you want to specify your own AE-TITLE (default is GDCMSCU), simply use:

$ gdcmscu --echo dicom​.example​.com 11112 --call SERVSCP --aetitle MYSCU

For example you could test on the DICOM server provided by DICOMObject team:

$ gdcmscu www​.dicomserver​.co​.uk 11112

C-STORE is the operation that allow sending a DICOM file to a remote DICOM server​. For instance to send a file called myfile​.dcm

$ gdcmscu --store dicom​.example​.com 104 myfile​.dcm

or if you prefer being explicit:

$ gdcmscu --store dicom​.example​.com 104 -i myfile​.dcm

You can even send multiple files using the same association:

$ gdcmscu --store dicom​.example​.com 104 myfile1​.dcm myfile2​.dcm myfile3​.dcm ​.​.​.

gdcmscu also allow querying a DICOM server​. This is the C-FIND operation, for example to find all DICOM Instance where PatientsName match a particular pattern, usage is simply:

$ gdcmscu --find --patient dicom​.example​.com 11112 --patientroot --key 10,10,"A*"

We also support a DCMTK compatible convention:

$ gdcmscu --find --patient dicom​.example​.com 11112 --patientroot --key 10,10="A*"

When an attribute is set without a value it will be part of the output result:

$ gdcmscu --find --patient dicom​.example​.com 11112 --call MI2B2 --patientroot -k 10,10="A*" -k 10,20

C-MOVE is the operation to retrieve a DICOM instance from a remote DICOM server​. Most of the time, it is a subsequent operation after a C-FIND query​. To retrieve a DICOM instance where PatientID is ABCD1234, simply execute:

$ gdcmscu --move --patient --aetitle ACME1 --call ACME_STORE dicom​.example​.com 5678 --patientroot -k 10,20="ABCD1234" --port-scp 1234

WARNING For this operation to work you need information from the DICOM server you are communicating with​. Only the DICOM server you are sending a C-MOVE query will be responsible for sending back incoming associations (the actual C-STORE SCP)​. Therefore you need to make sure that you mapping of (AE-TITLE,PortNumber) is properly set on the DICOM server side as well as the port for incoming association (–port-scp)​.

gdcmscu does not currently support external C-STORE association (C-STORE request sent to an external SCP application)​.

The flag –patientroot is just simply a wrapper around the syntax –key 8,52=PATIENT For instance one would write using DCMTK syntax:

$ findscu --patient dicom​.example​.com 11112 --key 8,52=PATIENT --key 10,10="F*"

This would become using GDCM syntax:

$ gdcmscu --find --patient dicom​.example​.com 11112 --patientroot --key 10,10="F*"

This is sometime difficult to investigate why a connection to a remote DICOM server cannot be done​. Some recommendations follows:

Always try to do a simple C-ECHO at first​. If you cannot get the C-ECHO to work none of the other operations will work

Before trying to a C-MOVE operation, make sure you can execute the C-FIND equivalent query first​.

When doing a C-MOVE operation you really need to communicate with the PACS admin as the C-MOVE operation is different from the other lower level operation such as HTTP/GET​. When doing a C-MOVE, the server will communicate back using another channel (could be different port) using it's internal database to map an AE-TITLE back to the destination IP​.

Indeed the C-MOVE operation by design does not always use your incoming IP address to send back the resulting dataset​. Instead it uses a mapping of AE-TITLE to IP address to send back any results​. So pay particular attention to the spelling of your AE-TITLE and your incoming port (which may be different from the port to connect to the server)​.

Watch out that port ranging [1-1024] are reserved for admin and not easily accessible unless granted special privileges​. Therefore the default 104 DICOM port might not be accessible to all your users​.

When constructing a C-STORE operation, gdcmscu will always use the Media Storage SOP Class UID as found in the file to be sent​. For encapsulated DICOM file (eg​. RLE Lossless) the receiving SCP server might not support this compression and will legitimately refuse the C-STORE operation​. In this case users have to manually convert to a non-compressed form this particular file:

$ gdcmconv --raw compressed​.dcm non_compressed​.dcm

At the moment gdcmscu only supports non-compressed transfer syntax​. It will always request DataSet using Implicit VR Little Endian Transfer Syntax during a C-MOVE operation (both incoming and outgoing associations)​. This make gdcmscu –move equivalent to DCMTK movescu syntax:

$ movescu -xi +xi ​.​.​.

One should pay attention that gdcmscu –find and findscu are not completely equivalent​. Using gdcmscu –find, all Unique Keys will be added automatically​. One can therefore execute something like this:

$ gdcmscu --find --patientroot --image --key 8,18=1​.2​.3​.4​.5​.6 dicom​.example​.com 11112

instead of the more explicit form

$ gdcmscu --find --patientroot --image --key 8,18=1​.2​.3​.4​.5​.6 dicom​.example​.com 11112 --key 10,20 --key 20,d --key 20,e

This would also be equivalent to:

$ findscu --patient --key 8,52=IMAGE --key 8,18=1​.2​.3​.4​.5​.6 dicom​.example​.com 11112 --key 10,20 --key 20,d --key 20,e

It is also possible to store the query:

gdcmscu --find --patient --patientroot dicom​.example​.com 11112 --key 10,20="*" --key 10,10 --store-query query​.dcm

One can then check the DataSet values send for the query:

$ gdcmdump query​.dcm
# Dicom-File-Format

# Dicom-Meta-Information-Header
# Used TransferSyntax:

# Dicom-Data-Set
# Used TransferSyntax: 1​.2​.840​.10008​.1​.2
(0008,0005) ?? (CS) [ISO_IR 192]                                  # 10,1-n Specific Character Set
(0008,0052) ?? (CS) [PATIENT ]                                    # 8,1 Query/Retrieve Level
(0010,0010) ?? (PN) (no value)                                    # 0,1 Patient's Name
(0010,0020) ?? (LO) [* ]                                          # 2,1 Patient ID

The Specific Character Set was set to “ISO_IR 192” as the locale encoding of the system was found automatically by gdcmscu to be UTF-8​.

This means that the following command line will properly setup the Query with the appropriate Charset to be executed correctly:

$ gdcmscu --find --patient --patientroot dicom​.example​.com 11112 --key 10,10="*Jérôme*"

The query is always executed on the server side (SCP), some implementations does not support string matching with different Character Set​.

An up to date list of DICOM Public Servers can be found at:

http://www​.dclunie​.com/medical-image-faq/html/part8​.html#DICOMPublicServers

gdcmconv(1)

Mathieu Malaterre

Copyright © 2006, 2011 Mathieu Malaterre