IPI, MEDICOM and DICOM: relations and possible future.

In October 1993, DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) Version 3.0 was approved by the ACR-NEMA committee as an ACR-NEMA standard for medical image interchange. At about the same time, IPI (Image Processing and Interchange) was approved as an ISO standard for general imaging. Within the European Committee for Standardisation, CEN, work on a European standard for medical image interchange, MEDICOM, has been going on for the last few years. It has been decided within the CEN Technical Committee for Medical Informatics (CEN/TC 251) that such a European standard should be based on IPI. In December 1993 it was also agreed that CEN would use DICOM 3.0 as a starting point in this work. Joint meetings between CEN/TC 251 Working Group 4 (Medical Imaging and Multimedia) and ACR-NEMA have been held held during 1994 and continue in 1995. This paper points to some of the reasons, both technical and economical, why IPI is suitable for medical imaging. It also shows how DICOM and IPI are complementary and that they could be used together to cover the requirements of future applications in medical imaging.