Medical Imaging in IDL: IDL DICOM Reference

IDLffDicomEx::GetVR

The IDLffDicomEx::GetVR function method returns the Value Representation (VR) of a DICOM attribute. This method allows you to return the VR of a public attribute. See IDLffDicomEx::GetPrivateVR for information on returning the VR of a private attribute.

Syntax

Result = Obj->[IDLffDicomEx::]GetVR(DicomTag [, SEQID=integer] )

Return Value

Returns a string indicating the Value Representation (VR) of the DICOM attribute specified by the DicomTag argument. See Value Representations for more information on individual value representations.

Arguments

DicomTag

A string that identifies the group and element of a DICOM attribute in the form 'XXXX,XXXX'. The DicomTag argument must reference a public tag. See DICOM Attributes for a list of tags.

Keywords

SEQID

Set this keyword only if retrieving the value of an attribute that exists within a sequence. Use this keyword to specify sequence identifier as follows:

Example

The following example returns the VR and value of the Modality attribute (0008,0060) of a selected DICOM file. This example does not make sure the attribute exists before returning it as this is a mandatory tag for valid DICOM files.

PRO read_vr_doc  
  
; Select a DICOM file to examine.   
sFile = DIALOG_PICKFILE( $  
    PATH=FILEPATH('',SUBDIRECTORY=['examples','data']), $  
    TITLE='Select DICOM Patient File', FILTER='*.dcm')  
  
; Open the selected file in read-only mode.  
 oImg = OBJ_NEW('IDLffDicomEx', sfile)  
  
; Return information from the Modality attribute.  
vValue = oImg->GetValue('0008,0060')  
vVR = oImg->GetVR('0008,0060')  
PRINT, 'Modality VR = ', vVR, + ' and value is ', vValue  
  
END  

For the mr_brain.dcm file, the output is:

Modality VR = CS and value is MR