Accessing Orthanc maintained meta data

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1

Is it possible to modify the meta parameters maintained by Orthanc itself, using the API to change their values?

I realize that some meta information, like AnonymizedFrom or ModifiedFrom, is stored in the meta field associated with the object (patient, study, series, etc.).

Sometimes, I arrive at my final anonymized DICOM by a series of calls to anonymize/modify. I get the feeling that the meta links are only ever one link deep (to the most immediate precursor of the current object). Thus, I find when I delete an intermediate object, for example, I lose the connection between the original DICOM object and the end DICOM object.

I realized I might be able to update the meta data myself, but I’ve never tried to do that with any parameters maintained by Orthanc itself. Is that possible? I could then link before/after DICOM objects myself when I delete intermediate versions.

Thanks,
John.

2

Unfortunately, you won’t be able to edit “system” metadata:
https://bitbucket.org/sjodogne/orthanc/src/62cc762d1fb0aec4fb06c986bbb30a90a3ab03b1/OrthancServer/OrthancRestApi/OrthancRestResources.cpp#lines-696

3

But you can edit user metadata (i.e. metadata whose index is above 1024):
http://book.orthanc-server.com/faq/features.html#metadata-attachments

Sébastien-

4

Are the “AnonymizedFrom” and “ModifiedFrom” meta data in this system location?

Regarding the Anonymized/Modified from meta maintained by Orthanc, I’d like to submit a feature request for a more sophisticated “lineage” linking modified DICOM back to their parent DICOM. I would envision turning one of those meta into an array rather than a scalar variable.

I like the current feature where I can query a DICOM for the parent DICOM it was modified from, but this approach fails when I use a series of anonymize/modify calls AND delete the intermediate DICOM. Without the intermediates, I break the link back to the original parent under the current Anonymized/ModifiedFrom system.

Theoretically, I could keep track of such lineage myself. I asked about modifying the meta, because I would then be able to update the final DICOM to point back to the original parent DICOM - thus maintaining the existing usefulness of the link in Explorer.

I will look into maintaining the lineage myself in the user metadata. Thanks for the suggestion.

John.