GetDATA
General

The DICOM Format: A Practical Primer

By GetDATA Team

What DICOM is, why it matters for medical imaging datasets, and how de-identification works in practice.

What is DICOM?

DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) is the international standard for storing and exchanging medical images. A DICOM file pairs pixel data with a rich header of tags describing the patient, study, series and acquisition parameters.

Why it matters for datasets

  • Tags preserve acquisition context (modality, slice thickness, pixel spacing) needed to interpret images correctly.
  • De-identification must strip or replace patient-identifying tags while keeping research-relevant fields intact.
  • Conversion to NIfTI or PNG is common for research pipelines, but the original DICOM remains the source of truth.

GetDATA requests specify the formats a project accepts so providers can deliver imaging data that drops straight into a training pipeline.

Need a specific medical dataset?

Post a request describing exactly what you need — modality, labels, format and volume — and verified hospitals and labs fulfill it with compliant, de-identified data.

Browse open requestsSign up to post a request