Howto: Use multiple data dictionaries¶

If you want to use multiple data dictionaries, e.g. for private or DICONDE (Digital Imaging and Communication in Nondestructive Evaluation) tags, the easiest way is to set the environment variable DCMDICTPATH accordingly. See documentation for details.

Example¶

On Windows systems:

> set DCMDICTPATH=C:\DCMTK\dicom.dic;C:\DCMTK\private.dic;C:\DCMTK\diconde.dic

On Unix systems (bash):

> export DCMDICTPATH=/usr/local/share/dcmtk/dicom.dic:/usr/local/share/dcmtk/private.dic:/usr/local/share/dcmtk/diconde.dic

The dictionary files are loaded in the same order as specified in the environment variable, i.e. from left to right. For this reason, entries in the diconde.dic overwrite the definitions in the standard DICOM dictionary dicom.dic in the above example (if the same tag is used).

Note¶

A DICONDE data dictionary is part of DCMTK 3.5.5 (20100226) or newer.