One document matched: draft-dicom-media-type-00.txt-6893.txt

INTERNET-DRAFT                                                     D. Clunie
Category: Informational                                        E. Cordonnier
                                                             DICOM Committee
                                                                   June 2001


 Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) - Application/dicom
                           MIME Sub-type Registration
                                        
                          draft-dicom-media-type-00.txt


Status of this Memo

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1. Abstract

   This document describes the registration of the MIME sub-type
   application/dicom.  The baseline encoding is defined by [DICOM].

2. DICOM Definition

   Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) specifies
   protocols and formats for the exchange of images, time-based
   waveforms, reports and associated information for medical
   applications.
   
   Individual DICOM objects (such as images) may be encapulsated in
   files and exchanged by e-mail using the Media Type defined herein.
   In addition, a set of DICOM files may be described by an index file,
   DICOMDIR, which may accompany the files that it references.

3.  IANA Registration

MIME media type name : Application

MIME subtype name : dicom

Required parameters : 
  
  "id" is constructed from a DICOM File ID (see DICOM PS3.11).
  The total length is limited to 71 characters. Each component is
  limited to 8 characters. The delimiter is a forward slash "/". There
  is never a leading delimiter (i.e. this is not a traditional path from
  a root directory).

  If a DICOMDIR (which provides an index of files) is included, then it
  will refer to other DICOM files in the file set by use of this File ID.
  The File ID is not encoded within each DICOM file. If a DICOMDIR is not
  present, then the "id" parameter may be absent. Note that the DICOMDIR
  will also have a Media Type of application/dicom and is distinguished
  from other files by its ID of "DICOMDIR".

  For example:
   "ROOTDIR/SUBDIR1/MRSCAN/A789FD07/19991024/ST00234/S00003/I00023"

  Each component shall be character strings made of characters from a
  subset of the G0 repertoire of ISO 8859. This subset consists of
  uppercase alphabetic characters, numeric characters and underscore.
  The following characters are permissable:

    A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V,
    W, X, Y, Z (uppercase)
    1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 and _ (underscore)


Optional parameters : 

  none


Encoding considerations : 

  The DICOM information is binary, therefore the encoding used shall
  support lossless transfer of binary information. Typically, the Content-
  Transfer-Encoding would be set to "Base64".

  Multiple DICOM parts should be included as a Multipart/related
  entity [2387]. Receiving agents shall also support multiple parts as
  a Multipart/mixed entity. When multiple DICOM parts are included one
  of the parts may be a DICOMDIR, in which case, all the files referred
  to by the DICOMDIR shall also be present. The DICOMDIR is not required
  to be the first Application/dicom part encoded in the message, in which
  case the optional "start" parameter should refer to the content-id
  of the part containing the DICOMDIR.

  Multiple DICOM Application/dicom parts may be included with other types
  of parts as a Multipart/mixed entity.


Security considerations : 

  Application/dicom parts contain medical information, including individual
  demographic information. Accordingly, their exchange should be restricted
  to a secure network or within a secure wrapper that protects a patient's
  right to confidentiality according to local and national policy. The
  specific security mechanisms are outside the scope of this proposal.
  Such mechanisms as Secured MIME (S/MIME) [2633] or similar might be
  appropriate.


Interoperability considerations :
 
  Because DICOM information is specific to the medical (imaging) domain,
  generic e-mail applications may not be able to interpret the information.

  The Media Type has been designed in order to allow for
  (i) DICOM aware applications to interoperate,
  (ii) generic applications to save the files in a form recognizable as
       DICOM files, that a DICOM application may subsequently use.


Published specification :
 
  The Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) Standard is a
  standard of the DICOM Standards Committee, published by the National
  Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), 1300 N. 17th Street, Rosslyn,
  Virginia 22209 USA, (http://medical.nema.org).


Applications which use this media :

  Biomedical imaging applications.

Additional information :

  1. Magic number(s) : "DICM" after 128 byte preamble indicates
                        DICOM PS 3.10 file
  2. File extension(s) : ".dcm" is recommended for files saved to disk
                         (other than DICOMDIR)
  3. Macintosh file type code : Macintosh File Type "DICM" is recommended
  4. Object Identifiers: none



Person to contact for further information :

  1. Name : Howard Clark
  2. E-mail : how_clark@nema.org

Intended usage :

  Common 
  
  Interchange of biomedical images.

Author/Change controller :

  DICOM Standards Committee 

5. Authors' Addresses

   David Clunie
   Comview Corporation
   220 White Plains Road, 5th Floor
   Tarrytown NY 10591
   USA
   Phone: +1-914-332-4800
   Fax:   +1-208-445-5867
   Email: dclunie@dclunie.com
   
   Emmanuel Cordonnier
   Etiam
   20 rue du Pr J. Pecker
   35000 Rennes -France-
   Phone: +33(0)299 14 33 88
   Fax:   +33(0)299 14 33 80
   Email: emmanuel.cordonnier@etiam.com

6. References

   [DICOM] DICOM Standards Committee, "Digital Imaging and Communications
           in Medicine", 2000.

   [2387] Levinson, E., "The MIME Multipart/Related Content-type", RFC 2387,
          August 1998.

   [2633] Ramsdell, B., "S/MIME Version 3 Message Specification", RFC 2633,
          June 1999.