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>>I am looking for information on or pointers to info on an >>image file format, ACR/NEMA. Specification, "standardness", >>areas of use, software processing sources, etc. >> >>ACR from American College of Radiologists? >>NEMA from National Electrical Manufacturers Assn? >

The ACR-NEMA standard was created to provide a standard way of shipping medical images between different manufacturers equipment. It covers CT, MR, ultrasound, PET images, etc. Currently it supports sequences of 2D images, but not 3D images.

The standard specifies everything from the connector to be used, to the communications protocol, to the contents of data fields in the images. You can, of course, read the data without worrying about the hardware or network protocols, if you get someone to ship you an image on tape, disk, etc.

Most of the data (in terms of number of fields, not number of bits) has to do with how the image was aquired, who the patient is, relationship between images, etc). The image data per se is relatively primitive (bit map, no compression). The intent was to make it simple and standard, rather than technically sophisticated.

The standard is ACR-NEMA Standards Publication No 300-1988. Note the "1988". This is the second version of the standard (published in 1989, of course :-)

It is published by

National Electrical Manufacturers Association 2101 L Streeet, N.W. Washington, DC 20037 USA

Afraid I don't know the price.

-- Ted Richards ...uunet!utai!lsuc!isgtec!ted ted@isgtec.UUCP ISG Technologies Inc. 3030 Orlando Dr. Mississauga Ont. Canada L4V 1S8

Look in: -- ACR-NEMA Standard Publication for Digital Imaging and Communications. Washington, DC, NEMA Publication no. 300, 1985.

this is the complete description of the standard, how to transmit an image across an interface. It also describes the "commmon image data format" which required... for a short description see:

-- Chris Spilker, The ACR-NEMA Digital Imaging and Communications Standard: A Nontechnical Description. Journal of Digital Imaging, Vol 2, No. 3 (August), 1988:pp 127-131.

hope this helps....

--mohamad ijadi@dinorah.wustl.edu