Background

There seems to be only one available PHP DICOM parser: php-dicom. However, after using it for a while (I took the lead on that project and added some new features), I felt that it needed a big overhaul.

The rationale for this new toolkit is to provide the following features:

• Robustness. Should not abruptly die. Exceptions are now triggered properly.
• No dependencies. Self-contained, period.
• Performance improvements.
  1. Memory is kept as low as possible, expect to have at least 10-30% extra of the size of the DICOM object to be read.
  2. Speed. Dictionaries are avoided at parsing time. Only a small subset is loaded. If only certain tags are requested, the parsing will stop there.
  3. Handling exceptions have been added.
• Up to date. DICOM dictionary has been updated to 2009. Except for few cases (multiplicity and conditional VR) almost 99% of tags are present. The new way to load dictionary allows for easy extensibility to include own private dictionaries.
• Documentation. Great tools shoudl have great documentation. Users should solve most of their inquiries by reading documentation. More to come. For now, inline documentation is extensively provided.
• Community-based. Using github to host the source code, hopefully others can contribute.
• Extensibility. The core code should be kept intact. The toolkit allows the easy extension of the main core class. It also allows the dynamic extension to include other tools at runtime. Please be aware that this feature is still experimental.
  Read Additional notes at the end of the file for more information.

Requirements

PHP 5.2.6+ (tested, possibly older versions)

Tested environments

1. 32-bits Windows7
   PHP 5.3.0 (cli) (built: Jun 29 2009 21:25:23)
   Copyright (c) 1997-2009 The PHP Group
   Zend Engine v2.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2009 Zend Technologies
   with Xdebug v2.1.0, Copyright (c) 2002-2010, by Derick Rethans
   
2. 64-bits "Linux 2.6.32-4-pve #1 SMP Mon Sep 20 11:36:51 CEST 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux" - Debian Lenny
   PHP 5.2.6-1+lenny9 with Suhosin-Patch 0.9.6.2 (cli) (built: Aug 4 2010 06:06:53)
   Copyright (c) 1997-2008 The PHP Group
   Zend Engine v2.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2008 Zend Technologies
   
3. 32-bits "Linux 2.6.32-24-generic-pae #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 20 15:37:22 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux" - Ubuntu 10.04 (Virtual Machine)
   PHP 5.3.2-1ubuntu4.2 with Suhosin-Patch (cli) (built: May 13 2010 20:01:00)
   Copyright (c) 1997-2009 The PHP Group
   Zend Engine v2.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2010 Zend Technologies
   
4. 64 bits "Linux 2.6.33.7-vs2.3.0.36.30.4 #23 SMP Tue Sep 28 05:47:35 PDT 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux" - Debian Lenny (Virtual Machine)
   PHP 5.2.14 (cli) (built: Oct 4 2010 16:17:01)
   Copyright (c) 1997-2010 The PHP Group
   Zend Engine v2.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2010 Zend Technologies
   with Zend Extension Manager v1.2.2, Copyright (c) 2003-2007, by Zend Technologies
   with XCache v1.2.2, Copyright (c) 2005-2007, by mOo
   with Zend Optimizer v3.3.9, Copyright (c) 1998-2009, by Zend Technologies
   
5. 32 bits "Linux 2.6.32-24-generic-pae #39-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 28 07:39:26 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux" - Ubuntu 10.04 (Virtual Machine)
   PHP 5.3.2-1ubuntu4.5 with Suhosin-Patch (cli) (built: Sep 17 2010 13:41:55)
   Copyright (c) 1997-2009 The PHP Group
   Zend Engine v2.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2010 Zend Technologies
   
6. 64 bits Sun Solaris Ultra-Sparc
   More details to come
   
7. Mac OS X
   Tested by Sebastien