Analysis of New Concepts and Definitions in DICOM Second Generation Radiotherapy Objects Based on an Experimental Implementation

This thesis examines the new major concepts for communicating radiotherapy-related data with DICOM, introduced in Supplement 147. As the existing DICOM information objects, used to transfer radiotherapy-related information, are mostly overloaded and static, new concepts to describe this data are developed at the moment in Supplement 147. These concepts facilitate a more convenient representation of new treatment devices and treatment techniques in DICOM and solve other issues with first-generation DICOM RT objects. Hence Supplement 147 is replacing the entire working concept strategy for a complete domain, and the supplement itself is extensive in comparison to other supplements, an overview whether all these concepts work together just by examining them on a drawing board is hardly possible. Therefore, this thesis investigates the information separation into different Information Object Definitions (IODs), the new radiation prescription object and the new concept to enable abstract access to volumetric objects, which are considered to be the major conceptual changes