Open DICOM file

Open DICOM file

The Aspose.Medical library offers a straightforward and effective method for opening and handling DICOM files within .NET applications. Opening existing DICOM files is the most common starting point for medical data workflows. After you load a DICOM file, you can get information about the file, edit the DICOM data elements, add new tags, or remove existing ones, etc.

Opening a DICOM File Using a File Path

To open an existing DICOM file, you simply have to call Aspose.Medical.Dicom.DicomFile.Open method and pass the file path (to the DICOM file you want to open) to it.

This c# code shows you how to open a DICOM file:

string dcmFilePath = "sample.dcm";
// Open the DICOM file using the specified file path
Aspose.Medical.Dicom.DicomFile dcm = DicomFile.Open(dcmFilePath);

Opening a DICOM File from a Stream

To open an existing DICOM file using its System.IO.Stream, you simply have to call the Aspose.Medical.Dicom.DicomFile.Open method and pass the stream (with the DICOM file you want to open) to it.

This c# code shows you how to open a DICOM file using its stream:

// Open the file as a stream
using System.IO.FileStream fileStream = new("sample.dcm", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
// Open the DICOM file from the stream
Aspose.Medical.Dicom.DicomFile dcm = DicomFile.Open(fileStream);

Handling Character Encoding in DICOM Files

Some DICOM files may contain non-ASCII characters in their data. If the encoding is not specified in the file itself, you can provide a fallback encoding to ensure proper text interpretation.

Both overloads of Aspose.Medical.Dicom.DicomFile.Open method allows passing fallback encoding.

This c# code shows you how to open a DICOM file with fallback encoding:

string dicomFilePath = "sample.dcm";

// Specify fallback encoding (e.g., UTF-8, shift_jis)
System.Text.Encoding fallbackEncoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("shift_jis");

// Open the DICOM file with fallback encoding
Aspose.Medical.Dicom.DicomFile dcm = DicomFile.Open(dicomFilePath, fallbackEncoding);

Advanced Options

The Aspose.Medical.Dicom library offers several advanced strategies for reading data from DICOM files efficiently. This is especially useful when dealing with large datasets where memory optimization is critical. You can find additional information here.