What's New in Oracle Multimedia DICOM?

This document summarizes the new features, enhancements, APIs, and Oracle Database support introduced with Oracle Multimedia DICOM in the current release.

New Features for Release 11.2

Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2) adds the following DICOM enhancements, which are described in this guide.

Recursive Calls within Constraint Definitions

Oracle Multimedia DICOM now supports recursive calls within constraint definitions. See Section 10.2.2.4 for more information and examples about how to use this enhancement.

Limiting the List of DICOM Attributes for Extraction

Oracle Multimedia DICOM now provides the ability to limit the list of DICOM attributes extracted by the setProperties( ) method, thus improving performance and reducing storage requirements. See Section 3.2.10 for more information about this enhancement.

Oracle Multimedia Mid-Tier Java API

Oracle Multimedia DICOM now includes the Oracle Multimedia Mid-Tier Java API, which enables the extraction of DICOM metadata outside of Oracle Database by a client tool or in the middle tier. This enhancement provides these benefits:

• Enables users to write Java applications for extracting DICOM metadata outside of Oracle Database.

• Facilitates the extraction of DICOM metadata attributes on which data is partitioned before the data is loaded into the database.

See Section 2.9 for more information about this enhancement.

DICOM Value Locator Type Syntax

Oracle Multimedia DICOM now provides DICOM value locator type syntax to enable users to reference DICOM metadata tags used in the DICOM configuration documents and that refer to private attribute definers. See General Format for DICOM Value Locators for complete reference information. See Section 10.2.1.5, Section 10.2.2.5, and Section 10.2.3.6, for more information about using DICOM value locators in anonymity, constraint, and mapping documents, respectively.

Wildcard Character Syntax

Oracle Multimedia DICOM now provides wildcard character syntax to enable iteration through all the components in a single predicate. See General Format for DICOM Value Locators for reference information about the wildcard character. See Section 10.2.2.5 for more information about this enhancement.

New Preference Parameters to Define Run-Time Behavior

These new preference parameters can be used in a preference document to define the run-time behavior of Oracle Multimedia DICOM:

• BINARY_SKIP_INVALID_ATTR

  Oracle Multimedia DICOM now supports the ability to specify whether to include or skips invalid attributes and their values in the binary output of DICOM content when making a copy of the DICOM Part 10 file. See Section 10.2.6.1 for more information about defining this preference parameter in a preference document.

• MANDATE_ATTR_TAGS_IN_STL

  Oracle Multimedia DICOM now supports the ability to specify whether to enforce the rule that all tags used by the constraint and mapping documents must be listed in the stored tag list document. See Section 10.2.6.3 for more information about defining this preference parameter in a preference document.

• MAX_RECURSION_DEPTH

  Oracle Multimedia DICOM now supports the ability to specify the maximum level of recursion to use when evaluating recursive constraint macros during conformance validation. See Section 10.2.6.4 for more information about defining this preference parameter in a preference document. See Section 10.2.2.4 for samples of recursive constraint macros.

• SPECIFIC_CHARACTER_SET

  Oracle Multimedia DICOM now supports the ability to specify a character set to override the default (ISO-IR 6 or ASCII) when the Specific Character Set attribute (0008,0005) is missing. See Section 10.2.6.5 for more information about defining this preference parameter in a preference document.

• SQ_WRITE_LEN

  Oracle Multimedia DICOM now supports the ability to specify how the method writeMetadata( ) encodes DICOM sequence (SQ) types. See Section 10.2.6.6 for more information about defining this preference parameter in a preference document.

See Section 10.1.6 and Section 10.2.6 for more information about preference documents. See Section B.8 for a listing of the preference document schema that constrains preference documents.

DICOM to AVI Conversion

Oracle Multimedia DICOM now supports the processing of multiframe DICOM content such as MRIs, CTs, and Ultrasound videos to the data format Microsoft Video for Windows Audio Video Interleave (AVI). See Section D.5 for more information about this enhancement.

DEFLATE Compression Format

Oracle Multimedia DICOM now supports the DEFLATE compression format. See Section D.1.1 for more information about this enhancement.

RLE Compression Format

Oracle Multimedia DICOM now supports the writing of DICOM images with the RLE compression format. See Section D.1.3 and Table D-2 for more information about this enhancement.

YBR Photometric Interpretation

Oracle Multimedia DICOM now supports YBR photometric interpretation. See Table D-1 for more information about this enhancement.

Encoding of Multibit Monochrome Raw Content

Oracle Multimedia DICOM now supports the encoding of multibit monochrome raw content. See Table D-2 for more information about this enhancement.

Oracle Data Pump Utilities Support for the DICOM Data Model Repository

Oracle Data Pump Utilities support is now available for the DICOM data model repository. See Section 9.9 for guidelines and examples that use the Oracle Data Pump commands expdp and impdp to perform export and import operations on the DICOM data model repository.