This section provides an overview of what dicom is, and why a developer might want to use it.

It should also mention any large subjects within dicom, and link out to the related topics. Since the Documentation for dicom is new, you may need to create initial versions of those related topics.

DICOM stands for D-igital I-maging and CO-mmunications in M-edicine. It consists of three main parts;

  1 - a file format for images and reports
  2 - a set of defined services 
  3 - a network protocol

and several standards related to creating, storing and exchanging the files (1) by using the services (2) over the network protocol (3).

DICOM is used in all modern medical imaging equipment so developers creating software for use in medicine must use the standard in order to operate in environments with other medical equipment and software.