Summary DICONDE Opportunities, Advantages & Benefits

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1 Summary DICONDE Opportunities, Advantages & Benefits 1 BACKGROUND During the digital revolution in the medical industry, a single imaging standard, DICOM, emerged from the community. Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) enables the integration of scanners, servers, workstations, printers and network hardware from multiple manufacturers into a cohesive picture archiving and communication system (PACS) and is now the worldwide standard for handling, storing, printing and transmitting medical imaging information. Faced with the same basic challenges of the medical industry how to quickly, reliably and securely store and retrieve and share images the American Society for Testing and Materials looked to DICOM for the NDT market. Given that only slight modifications were required to this proven technology to suit the NDT market (an NDT oriented superset was created, which allows patient tags to be replaced with component tags, etc.), the ASTM E07.11 subcommittee adapted DICOM, naming it DICONDE (Digital Imaging and Communication for Non-Destructive Evaluation). 2 NECESSITIES The needs for medical and NDT standardized archiving and communication are nearly equal: 1. Handle different modalities with different data formats: DR, CR, CT, US, EC, Reports, etc. 2. Retention of inspection data Critical infrastructure requires long -term retention of inspection data Aviation Transportation Energy Defense

2 3. Retention of storage challenges Changes in computer hardware Changes in computer software Changes in inspection vendors Maintaining inspection metadata E07.11 on DICONDE is concerned with the formulation of standards for the communication and storage of image data generated by all nondestructive testing methodologies capable of displaying images/data in an electronic format. 3 WHAT DIFFERS DICONDE DICONDE is a dictionary that describes all the necessary syntax, attributes and data elements to allow users to acquire, store, archive, transmit and receive image data in a way that is universally compatible. It is a system that allows images to be saved with its meta-data, in that all the technique information and information on location, date and time and inspector is saved with the image. Such information can then be included in any report generated, while its inclusion with the image into databases means that database searches can be carried out on a variety of criteria. Moreover, DICONDE images can be included on a disk with a standard DICONDE viewer, which allows them to be displayed on any standard PC.

3 4 DICONDE HIERARCHY The DICONDE format itself organizes the data in a way that creates a hierarchical, systematic structure for the data. Following the DICOM standard, data is organized in Study, Series and Instance hierarchy. Allowing inspections to be grouped and categorized within a system. In this inspection example, you see that a Component might be inspected once on one day and then again with the same Component information at a later date. The DICONDE formatting helps organize this data hierarchically, so when you pull back that Component in a DICONDE system you get one Study, but see both times that it was inspected as two separate Series within that Study.

4 5 OPPORTUNITIES, ADVANTAGES & BENEFITS 5.1 NO LIMITATIONS DICONDE compliancy ensures that operators are not limited by current proprietary formats, eliminating the need for future data conversion and simplifying data integration from other NDT information sources, such as pipe management databases. This ensures that customers can choose the best in breed hardware and software platforms while always ensuring the reliability of their data and its format. DICONDE based software platforms also allows one to manage all inspection data: Radiograph, Visual, Ultrasonics, Eddy Current, etc. on one platform and allows quick efficient sharing of inspection data and information. The phrase: A picture is worth a thousand words! comes true with DICONDE; the image and all the key information about that asset and inspection is stored right with the image. This provides a standard structure for querying on images and opens up the opportunity for advanced trending and data analysis based on inspection history ultimately leading to better asset management and improved asset uptime. 5.2 TIME SAVING With digital capability, a central repository of historical inspection data can be easily created, streamlining the overall workflow and making archiving, pre-inspection planning and post-inspection analysis quicker and more accurate. Due to the generated metadata it s easy to add new inspections, tests, etc. to an existing study. There is no need to find the right folder or open a dedicated viewer for the existing or new images. Sharing data is based on DICONDE much easier and faster. With a secured web platform and an integrated DICONDE Viewer the receiver do not need specified viewers to view different image formats. Burning CDs/DVDs will also include a DICONDE Viewer and all DICONDE compliant images can be displayed on each PC. Images tagged with universal metadata (e.g., part, revision, inspector, etc.), allowing for quicker image search and retrieval. Comparison of new acquisitions quickly against reference or initial images. Automatic image distribution based on programmable workflows. Prefetching (automated retrieval of prior images of the same part for comparison)

5 5.3 LONG-TERM SECURITY Due to the existing hierarchy and the metadata you will not lose any data, because those data can not be saved on a wrong folder or got the wrong ID, name, etc. Integrity verification for confident long-term image retention (possibly 30-plus years). DICONDE is a global standard, where a committee describes in detail the structure of the formats and hierarchy. F.e.: if J-PEG will not be any longer the standard, then the user will be informed about this and also how to convert the current format in the future (DIONDE-compliant format). 5.4 COLLABORATION WITH OTHERS By querying a Modality Worklist, DICONDE automatically populate the study with Component Id, Component Name, Study, etc. and other DICONDE information. With this, transcription errors are eliminated and procedures are performed more efficiently. Based on the used software (JiveX provides this) DICONDE is the base to show the entire Worklist query in a window on the computer screen allowing the NDT Inspection Service Technician to easily sort the work list by Component Name (and other parameters) and quickly choose the component of interest. Easier ability to share data including options for cloud-based storage (internally / externally) 5.5 FURTHER INFORMATION REFERENCES 1. The Value of DICONDE (2008); Andrea KOETZ, Sue CLENDENING 2.