[Ctk-developers] FYI: DCMTK 3.6.0 available for public release!

[OFFIS DICOM Team]

Dear all,

you won't believe it -- but today we released version 3.6.0 of DCMTK :-) It
took us some years to finally consolidate all our recent changes into a
release but I hope next official version will not take us 5 years again...
However, we have not been lazy the last years, see the official announcement
with the "best of" changes below. I know most of you are working on the
latest snapshots/git checkouts anyway.

Thank's to all the CTK people that were contributing to DCMTK and especially
kickstarted the CMake build system to run under Unix systems!

I am sorry that we/I do not have time to put much work into CTK's DICOM
interfaces the last months. I have already mailed Marco how we could move
forward with that from my point of view.

Enjoy the CTK Hackfest in February! Unfortunately I'm not able to
participate since I (must) take my 2010 holidays in complete February and it
is always difficult for me to get funding here for such trips in general. If
will try to be online some hackfest hours in Skype. So if you have some
urgent issues to discuss, add me as "michaeloffis" to your contact list or
email me.

Best regards
Michael

-------------------8<---------------8<--------------8<-----------------


ANNOUNCEMENT

Version 3.6.0 of the OFFIS DCMTK (DICOM ToolKit) software is now available
for public release.  This release includes the following main changes over
the previous version 3.5.4:

- DCMTK 3.6.0 now also builds correctly with GNU gcc 4.1 (and higher),
   Visual Studio 2008 and 2010.

- Tested with latest versions of the following operating
   systems/environments:

   - Linux on x86 and x86_64
   - FreeBSD on x86 and x86_64
   - MacOS X on x86_64
   - Windows on x86 and x86_64
   - Cygwin and MinGW/MSys on x86

   For a complete list of tested systems and compilers, see the INSTALL file.

- The CMake build system can now also be used with other operating systems
   than Windows.  However, GNU autoconf is still supported and should be
   preferred on systems where the CMake project files fail.

- New module oflog introduces a unified DCMTK-wide approach for logging
   based on the log4cplus library.  Direct output to console, file, syslog
   and event log.  All DCMTK command line tools now have the same set of
   logging options.

- New module dcmjpls adds support for JPEG-LS compressed DICOM images based
   on the CharLS library.  The tools dcmcjpls and dcmdjpls allow for
   compressing and decompressing DICOM images with JPEG-LS from the command
   line.

- New tool img2dcm allows for converting JPEG and BMP images to various
   DICOM image IODs, e.g. old and new Secondary Capture, Visible Light
   Photographic. The underlying C++ class library can also be used
   separately.

- New tool dcm2pdf allows for extracting PDF files from DICOM Encapsulated
   PDF Storage SOP instances.

- New tool dcml2pnm allows for converting JPEG-LS compressed DICOM imagesto
   standard image formats like TIFF or BMP.

- The tools dcmdump and storescu have new options for searching directories
   recursively for DICOM files.

- The tool dcmdump now also has a colored output of the textual dump.  So
   far, this option is available on non-Windows systems only (uses ANSI
   escape code).

- The tool dcmodify now also supports reading the value of insert and modify
   statements from a file.  This is especially useful for large element
   values.

- The tool dsr2html now also supports the output in HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.1
   format.  There are also new options that affect the rendering result.

- The tool dump2dcm now also supports compressed pixel data.  In addition,
   the memory requirements for very large data elements have been reduced.

- The tool xml2dcm can now also read binary data (e.g. pixel data) from a
   separate file.  The corresponding feature is not yet available in dcm2xml.

- The tool storescp now has a new option that allows for accepting all
   supported transfer syntaxes on a single association.

- The tool wlmscpfs now supports multi-process mode both on Posix and
   Windows platforms where a new child process is created for each incoming
   association.

- Refactored code of the tool findscu into a C++ class.  This facilitates
   re-use of the findscu code in other applications.

- Added further "switches" to the dcmdata module which allow to better cope
   with incorrectly encoded DICOM files or datasets.  These switches are also
   available as new options to the tools dcmdump and dcmconv.

- The dcmdata module now also gives access to partial attribute values
   without loading the complete attribute value into memory, if kept in file.

- The write methods in dcmdata now handle large raw data elements without
   loading everything into memory.  This allows very large images to be sent
   over a network connection or to be copied without ever being fully in
   memory.

- The dcmdata module now has a common interface for the frame-wise accessto
   compressed and uncompressed pixel data without ever loading the complete
   object into main memory.

- The dcmimgle/dcmimage module makes use of the new partial access to pixel
   data for processing large multi-frame images in a stepwise manner.

- The dcmimgle/dcmimage module and related tools now also support a new
   bilinear and a bicubic scaling algorithm for image magnification.
   Furthermore, the sigmoid VOI LUT function has been implemented.

- Added support for Colon CAD SR, Spectacle Prescription Report, Macular
   Grid Thickness and Volume Report as well as Implantation Plan SR
   documents to the dcmsr module.

- Incorporated fixes to dcmsr module which were introduced by various
   correction proposals.  Added support for the new optional Preliminary
   Flag.

- DICOMDIR tools and classes now support all new SOP classes and directory
   record types.  Also added a new operating mode that allows for updating
   existing entries in a DICOMDIR.

- Introduced general path syntax for accessing nested elements from command
   line tools like findscu or dcmodify.

- Added methods for checking the value representation (VR) and value
   multiplicity (VM) of data elements for conformance with the DICOM
   standard.

- Network tools now support transmission and receipt of JPEG-LS and MPEG2
   transfer syntaxes.

- Added support for the extended negotiation of user identity to the dcmnet
   module.  The first tool that makes use of this new feature is storescu.

- Introduced new experimental SCU and SCP classes that act as a C++ wrapper
   to the still C-based dcmnet module.

- Added new class OFFile that provides a simple encapsulation layer for file
   based stream I/O and, in particular, provides large file support (LFS)if
   available on the underlying operating system/platform through a single
   API.

- Out of the box compilation with OpenSSL 1.0.0 is now supported.

- Revised installation directory scheme in order to be more compliant with
   the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) and derived file system standards.

- Added data dictionary including private ASTM tags from DICONDE (Digital
   Imaging and Communication in Nondestructive Evaluation) standard.

- The DICOM data dictionary as well as the list of SOP classes and transfer
   syntaxes have been re-worked based on the latest edition of the DICOM
   standard plus all additionally approved supplements and correction
   proposals (as of 2010-11-30).  Please note that there have been minor
   name changes!

- Many bug fixes and minor improvements as usual - see the more than 12,000
   lines long CHANGES.360 file for more details.

The DCMTK software can be downloaded via:

   http://dicom.offis.de/dcmtk or http://www.dcmtk.org/

Thank you for your contribution!

Greetings from Oldenburg,
Jörg, Marco, Michael and Uli

P.S: Enjoy :-)

-- 
OFFIS DICOM Team, Escherweg 2, 26121 Oldenburg, Germany
E-Mail: dicom at offis.de, URL: http://dicom.offis.de