gdcmpdf - Man Page

Tool to convert PDF to PDF/DICOM.

Synopsis

gdcmpdf [options] file-in file-out

The gdcmpdf tool convert a PDF file (any PDF version) into an encapsulated PDF/DICOM file. By default it will try to read the PDF meta information stored in the PDF and convert this information to some specific DICOM fields (see below). However it may fails (eg. wrong password on encrypted PDF file) in which case empty value are used.

Parameters

file-in   PDF input filename

file-out  DICOM output filename

Options

general options

  -h   --help
         print this help text and exit

  -v   --version
         print version information and exit

  -V   --verbose
         verbose mode (warning+error).

  -W   --warning
         warning mode, print warning information

  -E   --error
         error mode, print error information

  -D   --debug
         debug mode, print debug information

Usage Example

$ wget http://gdcm.sourceforge.net/gdcm.pdf
$ gdcmpdf gdcm.pdf gdcm.dcm

To re-extract the encapsulated PDF file:

 $ gdcmraw -i gdcm.dcm -t 42,11 -o gdcm.dcm.pdf
 $ diff gdcm.pdf gdcm.dcm.pdf

PDF Info Mapping

Here is how the PDF info is mapped to DICOM information (typical pdfinfo output):

Title:          GDCM Reference Manual
Subject:        Grassroots DICOM API reference
Keywords:       GDCM,DICOM,JPEG,Lossless JPEG,JPEG-LS,J2K,JPEG 2000,RLE
Author:         Mathieu Malaterre and co.
Creator:        LaTeX with hyperref package
Producer:       pdfeTeX-1.21a
CreationDate:   Tue Apr 28 15:34:26 2009
Tagged:         no
Pages:          1188
Encrypted:      no
Page size:      612 x 792 pts (letter)
File size:      13756841 bytes
Optimized:      yes
PDF version:    1.4

Converted to DICOM this leads to:

# Dicom-Data-Set
# Used TransferSyntax: Little Endian Explicit
(0008,0005) CS [ISO_IR 100]                             #  10, 1 SpecificCharacterSet
(0008,0012) DA [20090428]                               #   8, 1 InstanceCreationDate
(0008,0013) TM [182550.302631]                          #  14, 1 InstanceCreationTime
(0008,0016) UI =EncapsulatedPDFStorage                  #  30, 1 SOPClassUID
(0008,0018) UI [1.2.826.0.1.3680043.2.1143.776842935192792959289022034349197114] #  64, 1 SOPInstanceUID
(0008,0020) DA [20090428]                               #   8, 1 StudyDate
(0008,0023) DA [20090428]                               #   8, 1 ContentDate
(0008,002a) DT [20090428153437.000000]                  #  22, 1 AcquisitionDateTime
(0008,0030) TM [182550.302160]                          #  14, 1 StudyTime
(0008,0033) TM [153426.000000]                          #  14, 1 ContentTime
(0008,0050) SH (no value available)                     #   0, 0 AccessionNumber
(0008,0060) CS [OT]                                     #   2, 1 Modality
(0008,0064) CS [WSD]                                    #   4, 1 ConversionType
(0008,0070) LO [LaTeX with hyperref package]            #  28, 1 Manufacturer
(0008,0090) PN (no value available)                     #   0, 0 ReferringPhysiciansName
(0010,0010) PN [Mathieu Malaterre and co.]              #  26, 1 PatientsName
(0010,0020) LO (no value available)                     #   0, 0 PatientID
(0010,0030) DA (no value available)                     #   0, 0 PatientsBirthDate
(0010,0040) CS (no value available)                     #   0, 0 PatientsSex
(0018,1020) LO [pdfeTeX-1.21a]                          #  14, 1 SoftwareVersions
(0020,000d) UI [1.2.826.0.1.3680043.2.1143.1868121832223417351654232480755123133] #  64, 1 StudyInstanceUID
(0020,000e) UI [1.2.826.0.1.3680043.2.1143.1330099150825746617507846107663964311] #  64, 1 SeriesInstanceUID
(0020,0010) SH (no value available)                     #   0, 0 StudyID
(0020,0011) IS [1]                                      #   2, 1 SeriesNumber
(0020,0013) IS [1]                                      #   2, 1 InstanceNumber
(0028,0301) CS [YES]                                    #   4, 1 BurnedInAnnotation
(0040,a043) SQ (Sequence with explicit length #=0)      #   0, 1 ConceptNameCodeSequence
(fffe,e0dd) na (SequenceDelimitationItem for re-encod.) #   0, 0 SequenceDelimitationItem
(0042,0010) ST [GDCM Reference Manual]                  #  22, 1 DocumentTitle
(0042,0011) OB 25\\50\\44\\46\\2d\\31\\2e\\34\\0a\\25\\e7\\f3\\cf\\d3\\0a\\33\\32\\30\\37\\37\\20\\30... # 13756842, 1 EncapsulatedDocument
(0042,0012) LO [application/pdf]                        #  16, 1 MIMETypeOfEncapsulatedDocument

$ stat gdcm.pdf
  File: `gdcm.pdf'
  Size: 13756841        Blocks: 26912      IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: fe01h/65025d    Inode: 2675750     Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: ( 1002/mmalaterre)   Gid: ( 1002/mmalaterre)
Access: 2009-04-28 16:05:00.000000000 +0200
Modify: 2009-04-28 15:34:37.000000000 +0200
Change: 2009-04-28 16:05:00.000000000 +0200

Explanation for the different Date/Time mappings:

Study Date/Time, Instance Creation Date/Time are both equal to the current time gdcmpdf tool was run,
Acquisition Date Time is set to the Modify Time of the actual PDF file,
Content Date/Time are set from the actual PDF header info: CreationDate.

Author

Mathieu Malaterre

Main developer

Copyright

Info

08/07/2026 GDCM 3.0.24 DICOM Manipulation.