Sending dicom file to a remote AE using c# in visu

Question

My goal is to send a dicom file to a remote AE using c# in visual studio 2010, I plan to implement the clearcanvas library, I have divided the task into 5 parts:

//    //1 initiate tcp\ip connection
//    //2 negotiate the association parameters to agree what can be done
//    //3 send the dicom object
//    //4 close the association
//    //5 close the TCP/IP connection

I know storagescu will be involved in the sending part3), I tried looking things up on clearcanvas forum, the codes do not make much sense yet, so I do not know where to start from exactly, can anyone who had experience in sending dicom file to a remote ae give some clue about how I should even do my research? am I on the right track?

Your help will be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

I built this on Clear Canvas specifically to be able to send extremely large files. Other programs I wrote failed on large size images so I made a stripped down version to send DICOM files in the size of multiple GB and it worked. Only command line and program.cs in this program. This is the simplest answer to the question of how to send a DICOM file using Clear Canvas.

There is one thing to note. You need a way to communicate between the thread launching the request and Clear Canvas, in this case a C-Store request from program.cs and the class AssociationHandler : IDicomClientHandler.

Here I just use a Boolean and a while loop before allowing the thread creating the request to proceed. In other programs I have used a multi-dimensional string array to hold values for each association, and I can perform any DICOM operation, C-Store, C-Move, C-Find, N-Action, ect, in a multi-threaded fashion with Clear Canvas. There simply is no better open source DICOM toolkit.

All you have to do to run this code is create a console application and work out the references to the Clear Canvas libraries. Please ask any questions.

Command Line Arguments are listed in the code for the help output.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using ClearCanvas.Dicom;
using System.IO;
using System.Diagnostics;
using ClearCanvas.Dicom.Network;
using ClearCanvas.Common;
using System.Net;
using System.Threading;
namespace CC_SendFile
{
    class Program
    {

        public static Boolean C_Store_Response = false;
        public static Boolean Assoc_Accept_Reject = false;
        public static Boolean NetworkError = false;


        public static String FilePath = null;
        public static String LocalAE = null;
        public static String RemoteAE = null;
        public static String RemoteIP = null;
        public static String RemotePort = null;
        public static uint MaxPDUSize = 0;
        public static int MaxPDUTimeoutMilliSeconds = 30000;



        static void Main(string[] args)
        {

            if (args.Length != 0)
            {
                String ProcessID = null;
                System.Diagnostics.Process myProcess = System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess();
                ProcessID = "[" + myProcess.Id.ToString() + "] ";
                myProcess.Close();
                myProcess.Dispose();

                Platform.Log(LogLevel.Debug, "Process ID obtained for title bar and logging is: " + ProcessID);
                log4net.GlobalContext.Properties["procid"] = ProcessID;    


                for (int i = 0; i < args.Length - 1; i++)
                {
                    String ArgTemp = null;

                    ArgTemp = args[i];

                    if (ArgTemp == "-l")
                    {
                        LocalAE = args[i + 1];
                        i++;
                    }
                    if (ArgTemp == "-r")
                    {
                        RemoteAE = args[i + 1];
                        i++;
                    }
                    if (ArgTemp == "-h")
                    {
                        RemoteIP = args[i + 1];
                        i++;
                    }
                    if (ArgTemp == "-p")
                    {
                        RemotePort = args[i + 1];
                        i++;
                    }
                    if (ArgTemp == "-f")
                    {
                        FilePath = args[i + 1];
                        i++;
                    }
                    if (ArgTemp == "-u")
                    {
                        MaxPDUSize = uint.Parse(args[i + 1]);
                        i++;
                    }
                    if (ArgTemp == "-n")
                    {
                        MaxPDUTimeoutMilliSeconds = int.Parse(args[i + 1]);

                    }


                }//for (int i = 1; i < args.Length - 1; i++)


                ClientAssociationParameters g_assocParams = null;
                DicomClient g_dicomClient = null;

                IPAddress addr = null;
                foreach (IPAddress dnsAddr in Dns.GetHostAddresses(RemoteIP))
                    if (dnsAddr.AddressFamily == System.Net.Sockets.AddressFamily.InterNetwork)
                    {
                        addr = dnsAddr;
                        Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info , "IP address found to use is: " + addr.ToString());
                        break;
                    }
                if (addr == null)
                {
                    Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, "No Valid IP addresses for host {0}", RemoteIP);
                    return;
                }
                g_assocParams = new ClientAssociationParameters(LocalAE, RemoteAE, new IPEndPoint(addr, int.Parse(RemotePort)));


                if (MaxPDUSize != 0)
                {

                    g_assocParams.LocalMaximumPduLength = MaxPDUSize;

                    Console.WriteLine("LocalMaximumPduLength has been set to: " + g_assocParams.LocalMaximumPduLength.ToString());
                    Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "LocalMaximumPduLength has been set to: " + g_assocParams.LocalMaximumPduLength.ToString());
                }
                else
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("LocalMaximumPduLength is by default: " + g_assocParams.LocalMaximumPduLength.ToString());
                    Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "LocalMaximumPduLength is by default: " + g_assocParams.LocalMaximumPduLength.ToString());
                }


                try
                {       
                    Console.WriteLine("");
                    Console.WriteLine("Loading File: " + FilePath + ", please wait...");
                    Console.WriteLine("");
                    Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "Loading File: " + FilePath + ", please wait...");

                    DicomFile DF = new DicomFile(FilePath);


                    GC.AddMemoryPressure(1047881834);

                    try
                    {
                        //DF.Load(DicomReadOptions.KeepGroupLengths);
                        DF.Load(DicomReadOptions.Default);
                    }
                    catch (Exception eL)
                    {

                    }

                    Console.WriteLine("SOP Class: " + DF.SopClass.ToString());
                    Console.WriteLine("Transfer Syntax: " + DF.TransferSyntax.ToString ());
                    Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "SOP Class: " + DF.SopClass.ToString());
                    Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "Transfer Syntax: " + DF.TransferSyntax.ToString());

                    byte pcid = g_assocParams.AddPresentationContext(DF.SopClass);
                    g_assocParams.AddTransferSyntax(pcid, DF.TransferSyntax);


                    DicomMessage msg = new DicomMessage(DF);

                    DF = null;
                    GC.Collect();
                    GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();

                    AssociationHandler handler = new AssociationHandler();                  
                    Console.WriteLine("Attempting to connect to remote AE.");
                    Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "Attempting to connect to remote AE.");
                    g_dicomClient = DicomClient.Connect(g_assocParams, (IDicomClientHandler)handler);


                    while (Assoc_Accept_Reject == false)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("Waiting for Association to be accepted or rejected.");
                        Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "Waiting for Association to be accepted or rejected.");
                        Thread.Sleep(1000);

                    }

                    try
                    {
                        if (MaxPDUTimeoutMilliSeconds != 0)
                        {
                            g_dicomClient.InternalSocket.SendTimeout = MaxPDUTimeoutMilliSeconds;
                            g_dicomClient.InternalSocket.ReceiveTimeout = MaxPDUTimeoutMilliSeconds;
                            Console.WriteLine("Internal Socket Send/Receive Timeout has been set to: " + g_dicomClient.InternalSocket.SendTimeout.ToString() + " ms.");
                            Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "Internal Socket Send/Receive Timeout has been set to: " + g_dicomClient.InternalSocket.SendTimeout.ToString() + " ms.");
                            g_dicomClient.InternalSocket.SendTimeout = MaxPDUTimeoutMilliSeconds;
                        }
                        Console.WriteLine("Sending C-Store Request.");
                        Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "Sending C-Store Request.");

                        g_dicomClient.SendCStoreRequest(pcid, g_dicomClient.NextMessageID(), DicomPriority.Medium, msg);
                    }
                    catch (Exception eS)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("Error sending C-Store Request.");
                        Console.WriteLine(eS.ToString());
                        Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, "Error sending C-Store Request. The error is: " + eS.ToString ());

                    }

                    while (C_Store_Response == false)
                    {

                        Console.WriteLine("Waiting for C-Store response.");
                        Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "Waiting for C-Store response.");
                        Thread.Sleep(1000);

                    }

                    if (NetworkError == false)
                    {

                        Console.WriteLine("Sending release request.");
                        Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "Sending release request.");
                        g_dicomClient.SendReleaseRequest();

                    }

                    Thread.Sleep(1000);

                    Console.WriteLine("Operations have completed.");
                    Console.WriteLine("Press ENTER to exit!");
                    Console.ReadLine();

                }
                catch (Exception e)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("Error reading file. The error is:");
                    Console.WriteLine("");
                    Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
                    Console.WriteLine("");
                    Console.WriteLine("Stack Trace:");
                    Console.WriteLine(e.ToString());
                    Console.WriteLine("Press ENTER to exit!");
                    Console.ReadLine();

                    Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, "Error reading file. The error is:");
                    Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, e.ToString());
                }

            }//if (args .Length != 0 )
            else
            {
                Console.WriteLine ("You must provide the proper command line arguments.");
                Console.WriteLine ("Required arguments are:");
                Console.WriteLine ("");
                Console.WriteLine ("-f [full file path to DCM file] (No whitespaces please!)");
                Console.WriteLine ("-l [Local AE Title]");
                Console.WriteLine ("-r [Remote AE Title]");
                Console.WriteLine ("-h [Remote HostName or IP address]");
                Console.WriteLine ("-p [Remote Port]");
                Console.WriteLine ("");
                Console.WriteLine("Press ENTER to exit!");
                Console.ReadLine();

                Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, "You must provide the proper command line arguments.");
                Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, "Required arguments are:");
                Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, "");
                Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, " -f [full file path to DCM file] (No whitespaces please!)");
                Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, " -l [Local AE Title]");
                Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, " -r [Remote AE Title]");
                Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, " -h [Remote HostName or IP address]");
                Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, " -p [Remote Port]");
                Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, "");

            }

        }//static void Main(string[] args)




        class AssociationHandler : IDicomClientHandler
        {
            #region IDicomClientHandler Members

            public void OnReceiveAssociateAccept(DicomClient client, ClientAssociationParameters association)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Association was accepted!");
                Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "Association was accepted!");
                Assoc_Accept_Reject = true;
            }

            public void OnReceiveAssociateReject(DicomClient client, ClientAssociationParameters association, DicomRejectResult result, DicomRejectSource source, DicomRejectReason reason)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Association was rejected!");
                Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "Association was rejected!");
                Assoc_Accept_Reject = true;
            }

            public void OnReceiveRequestMessage(DicomClient client, ClientAssociationParameters association, byte presentationID, DicomMessage message)
            {

            }

            public void OnReceiveResponseMessage(DicomClient client, ClientAssociationParameters association, byte presentationID, DicomMessage message)
            {
                if (message.Status.Status == DicomState.Success)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("DICOM success message received!");
                    Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "DICOM success message received!");
                    C_Store_Response = true;
                }

                if (message.Status.Status != DicomState.Failure)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("DICOM faliure message received!");
                    Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "DICOM faliure message received!");
                    C_Store_Response = true;
                }
            }

            public void OnReceiveReleaseResponse(DicomClient client, ClientAssociationParameters association)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Received Release Response.");
                Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "Received Release Response.");
            }

            public void OnReceiveAbort(DicomClient client, ClientAssociationParameters association, DicomAbortSource source, DicomAbortReason reason)
            {

            }

            public void OnNetworkError(DicomClient client, ClientAssociationParameters association, Exception e)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Network Error occured.");
                Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "Network Error occured.");

                try
                {
                    Platform.Log(LogLevel.Info, "Attempting to get error message...");
                    Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, e.ToString ());
                }
                catch (NullReferenceException)
                {
                    Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, "The error message was null.");
                }

                C_Store_Response = true;
                NetworkError = true;
            }

            public void OnDimseTimeout(DicomClient client, ClientAssociationParameters association)
            {
                Platform.Log(LogLevel.Error, "DimseTimeout occured on client. Continuing...");
            }

            #endregion

        }

    }//class Program
}//namespace CC_SendFile