"Joerg Riesmeier" wrote in message news:...
> Shabu wrote:
>
> > Does DCMTK have a method to read a Dicomdir file instead of being
> > forced to build dicomdir structure from the dicom files. I would
> > assume reading dicomdir file directly( if present) could be speedier.
>
> I'm sorry but I don't understand what you intend to do.

## I am sorry, let me explain further...

1st scenario :
We receive CD's which have the dicom images stored in them ( say
within a folder on CD)... most times we also have a dicomdir file in
the root of the CD...

What our Dicomreader used to do was read this dicomdir file & add the
dicomdir structure to the Windows explorer tree control ( as if the
dicomdir's list of patients, studies, series are individual
folders/files)... Users can preview the relevant series in the Open
dialog Box itself before chosing to look up a particular series...

2nd scenario :
Occasionally we receive CD's without the dicomdir file.. In such cases
we try & open each file on the CD, check if its a dicom file & if so
we try to recreate the dicomdir structure( in memory & don't dump it
on disk)...

I was talking about the 1st scenario while u had talked about what I
think is 2nd scenario in ur earlier post In that code, u too seem to
be attempting to read in individual dicom files as u try to build up
the dicomdir structure...

I have posted a seperate question on a seperate thread called "Using
DCMTK - Basic coding"... find it here
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...ing.google.com

I would deeply appreciate if u could give me some pointers there...

> > Went thru the DicomDirInterface, but couldn't find any specific
> > read dicomdir functionality...
>
> From the header file of this class:
>
> === CUT ===
>
> /** An interface class for simplified creation of a DICOMDIR
> */
> class DicomDirInterface ...
>
> === CUT ==
>
> So it should be obvious that the purpose of this class is the
> _creation_ of a DICOMDIR file and nothing else.
>

## it seemed as if the class supported building a dicomdir file by
adding Dicom files alone.. since then I looked up in the code & I can
see the functions createNewDicomDir() & appendToDicomDir() which take
a filename as input & the commnets says that something about "DICOMDIR
file" but it isn't clear if they read in a dicomdir file & create a
root-node structure ( say like in XML DOM structure)

I need to read more of this class comments & documentation to clear my
doubts...

> > I searched dcmtk help file for DcmDicomDir & dcdicdir.. but couldn't
> > find any matches... Were those old classes, that were phased out
>
> The class is still there (see dcmdata/include/dcdicdir.h).
>
> The reason why you could not find it in the HTML documentation is
> quite simple:
>
> 'At the current time, dcmimage, dcmimgle, dcmjpeg, dcmpstat, dcmsign,
> dcmsr, dcmtls, dcmwlm and ofstd are completely documented, dcmdata and
> dcmnet are partially documented. See FAQ entry: "Where is rest of the
> documentation?"'
>
> Regards,
> Joerg Riesmeier
> OFFIS

## my sincere thanks for your your time & effort.

Cheers,
Michael