pynetdicom

pynetdicom is a Python package that implements the DICOM networking protocol. Working with pydicom, it allows the easy creation of DICOM Application Entities, which can then act as Service Class Users (SCUs) and Service Class Providers (SCPs) by associating with other DICOM applications.

Install

pip

pip install pynetdicom

conda

conda install -c conda-forge pynetdicom

For more detailed instructions, see the installation guide.

Examples

Echo SCU

# Request a peer AE respond to a DICOM C-ECHO

from pynetdicom import AE
from pynetdicom.sop_class import Verification

ae = AE(ae_title="MY_AE_TITLE")
ae.add_requested_context(Verification)

# Send an association request to the peer at IP 127.0.0.1, port 11112
assoc = ae.associate("127.0.0.1", 11112)
if assoc.is_established:
    # Send a C-ECHO request, returns the response status as a pydicom Dataset
    status = assoc.send_c_echo()
    if status:
        # A success response is 0x0000
        print(f"C-ECHO response: 0x{status.Status:04X}")
    else:
        print("Connection timed out, was aborted or received an invalid response")

    # Release the association
    assoc.release()
else:
    print("Association request rejected, aborted or never connected")

Storage SCU

# Request a peer AE store a DICOM dataset

from pydicom import examples, dcmread
from pynetdicom import AE
from pynetdicom.sop_class import CTImageStorage

# pydicom's example CT dataset
ds = dcmread(examples.get_path("ct"))

ae = AE(ae_title="MY_AE_TITLE")
ae.add_requested_context(CTImageStorage)  # Must match the dataset being sent
assoc = ae.associate("127.0.0.1", 11112)
if assoc.is_established:
    # Send a C-STORE request, returns the response status as a pydicom Dataset
    status = assoc.send_c_store(ds)  # May also be the path to the dataset
    if status:
        # A success response is 0x0000
        print(f"C-STORE response: 0x{status.Status:04X}")
    else:
        print("Connection timed out, was aborted or received an invalid response")

    # Release the association
    assoc.release()
else:
    print("Association request rejected, aborted or never connected")

Storage SCP

# Listen for storage requests from peer AEs

from uuid import uuid4
from pynetdicom import AE, evt, AllStoragePresentationContexts

def handle_store(event):
    """Handle a C-STORE request event."""
    # Write the received dataset directly to file
    with open(str(uuid4()), 'wb') as f:
        f.write(event.encoded_dataset())

    # Return a 'Success' status
    return 0x0000

handlers = [(evt.EVT_C_STORE, handle_store)]

ae = AE(ae_title="MY_AE_TITLE")
ae.supported_contexts = AllStoragePresentationContexts

# Start listening for incoming association requests
ae.start_server(("127.0.0.1", 11112), evt_handlers=handlers)

More service class-specific code examples can be found here.

Documentation

User guide

The user guide contains an introduction to relevant DICOM concepts and usage of pynetdicom’s core classes and functions.

User guide

Learning resources

Our collection of code examples and tutorials should help you learn the basics of creating your own SCUs and SCPs.

Learning resources

Service classes

The service class documentation contains information on each of the DICOM services supported by pynetdicom.

Service classes

API reference

The API reference documentation contains detailed descriptions of the classes, functions, modules and other objects included in pynetdicom.

API reference