[Ctk-developers] Machine Readable DICOM Standard – the 2013 Interim Edition Issued for Public Review

[David Clunie]

To: Members of the DICOM Community, Clinical Users, Software Developers, 
Commercial Implementers of the DICOM Standard, and the Healthcare IT 
Community.

Subject: Machine Readable DICOM Standard – the 2013 Interim Edition 
Issued for Public Review

A milestone in documentation of the DICOM Standard is approaching, with 
the long awaited 2013 release of the standard being prepared in DocBook 
XML form, rather than the traditional Microsoft Word form.

Note: The official version of the Standard will continue to be the PDF 
version.

David Clunie, DICOM Editor (dclunie at dclunie.com) is performing the 
conversion, with James Rogers (jr at coastalcg.com) redrawing the figures 
in SVG. Both are funded by MITA.

An interim draft of the 2013 release for the purpose of public review is 
now available at

   "ftp://medical.nema.org/MEDICAL/Dicom/2013-Interim/"

The DICOM Community, clinical and industry users and implementers of the 
DICOM Standard, the healthcare IT community and the public at large are 
invited to comment.  Comments should be submitted as soon as possible 
but not later than by April 15, 2014, directly to 
"mailto:dclunie at dclunie.com". This review of the draft release by the 
community at large is invited and encouraged to assure that nothing 
significant has been lost during the conversion.

Feedback is also solicited on the usability of the interim release.

Release of the final standard, incorporating your feedback, is expected 
by the end of April 2014.

The XML machine-readable format will greatly simplify automated 
extraction of content from the standard in future, as well as permitting 
a greater degree of hyper- linking within and between parts than has 
been available in past releases.

The release contains the following formats:

- DocBook XML
- PDF
- HTML
- Chunked HTML (in sections rather than entire parts per file)
- Microsoft Word DOCX (for the editors of future additions (Supplements) 
and corrections (CP) to the DICOM Standard.

The content consists of the 2011 release as amended by all of the final 
text Supplements and CPs completed by the end of 2013, and does not 
including the output of the January 2014 WG-06 meeting. Details can be 
found in the release notes.

This interim release is NOT the final standard and should NOT be relied 
upon in lieu of the 2011 release and final text Supplements and CPs.

You may share this interim release with others for the purpose of 
conducting this review, but it may NOT be republished (e.g., on another 
web or ftp site).

Note also that some aspects of this interim release are incomplete; for 
example not all the figures have yet been redrawn in SVG yet, and 
placeholders using the old figures are used where necessary.

Sincerely,

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Stephen Vastagh
General Secretary, DICOM
(Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine)
c/o Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA)
A Division of NEMA, The Association for Electrical Equipment & Medical 
Imaging Manufacturers
1300 North 17th Street, Suite 900
Arlington, VA  22209, USA
Phone: +1-703-475-9217
Skype: stephenvastagh
Fax:    (703) 841-3381
svastagh at medicalimaging.org
http://dicom.nema.org