Name of DICOM tag Groups

[Marco]

Hi to everybody.

I have quite a simple question: the standard DICOM Dictionary (PS 3.6)
lists all standard DICOM data elements, with their tags (group number,
element number), names, VRs and VMs.

While there are many different data elements in the standard DICOM
dictionary, there are only a few Groups (i.e., different group
numbers). Is there a place in the DICOM standard where each different
tag group is assigned a name or a textual description? For instance,
is there an "official" name for the DICOM group (0008,*)?

Thank you and best regards,

Marco.

[Marco]

Nobody on this matter?

Post by Marco
Hi to everybody.
I have quite a simple question: the standard DICOM Dictionary (PS 3.6)
lists all standard DICOM data elements, with their tags (group number,
element number), names, VRs and VMs.
While there are many different data elements in the standard DICOM
dictionary, there are only a few Groups (i.e., different group
numbers). Is there a place in the DICOM standard where each different
tag group is assigned a name or a textual description? For instance,
is there an "official" name for the DICOM group (0008,*)?
Thank you and best regards,
Marco.

[l***@hotmail.com]

DICOM groups are a legacy matter. The various attributes were divided
in groups with a given meaning in the ACR-NEMA 1.0 and 2.0 standards
(the "grandfather" and "father" of DICOM: that's why at the beginning
it was called "DICOM 3.0", now the "3.0" is no more used).

For example, group (0008, *) was called "Identifying Information", etc.
If you really want to see the names of the groups the only way is to
find a copy of ACR-NEMA 2.0. But I think it's useless. Nowadays the WG6
people put the various new attributes in a given group at their free
choice, probably just looking where similar older attributes are.

Regards.

Luigi Pampana-Biancheri
Esaote S.p.A. - Genova - Italy
E-mail: ***@REMOVETHISesaote.com

[Marco]

Luigi,

thanks a lot for your answer, which is quite illuminating.

The only reason why I would like to associate a textual description
with a group number is that I am developing a custom DICOM application
where the user may select DICOM attributes from the entire DICOM
dictionary, and I wanted to provide a categorization which made the
selection process simpler by a human. The first categorization that
came to my mind was by DICOM group: still, assigning to each group
only a "group number" may be meaningless for most users, hence I
wanted to provide a meaningful "group description" for each group.

Comments are appreciated.

Regards,

Marco.

Post by l***@hotmail.com
DICOM groups are a legacy matter. The various attributes were divided
in groups with a given meaning in the ACR-NEMA 1.0 and 2.0 standards
(the "grandfather" and "father" of DICOM: that's why at the beginning
it was called "DICOM 3.0", now the "3.0" is no more used).
For example, group (0008, *) was called "Identifying Information", etc.
If you really want to see the names of the groups the only way is to
find a copy of ACR-NEMA 2.0. But I think it's useless. Nowadays the WG6
people put the various new attributes in a given group at their free
choice, probably just looking where similar older attributes are.
Regards.
Luigi Pampana-Biancheri
Esaote S.p.A. - Genova - Italy