DICOM Data Loader Operator

Authors: Holoscan SDK Team (NVIDIA)
Supported platforms: x86_64, aarch64
Language: Python
Last modified: August 5, 2025
Latest version: 1.1.0
Minimum Holoscan SDK version: 1.0.3
Tested Holoscan SDK versions: 2.2.0, 3.2.0
Contribution metric: Level 2 - Trusted

This operator loads DICOM studies into memory from a folder of DICOM instance files.

Overview

The DICOMDataLoaderOperator loads DICOM studies from a specified folder, making them available as a list of DICOMStudy objects for downstream processing in Holoscan medical imaging pipelines.

Requirements

• Holoscan SDK Python package
• pydicom

Example Usage

from pathlib import Path
from holoscan.core import Fragment
from operators.medical_imaging.dicom_data_loader_operator import DICOMDataLoaderOperator

fragment = Fragment()
dicom_loader = DICOMDataLoaderOperator(
    fragment,
    name="dicom_loader",  # Optional operator name
    input_folder=Path("input"),  # Path to folder containing DICOM files
    output_name="dicom_study_list",  # Name of the output port
    must_load=True  # Whether to raise an error if no DICOM files are found
)

API Reference

Python

DICOMDataLoaderOperator

Inherits from: Operator

This operator loads DICOM studies into memory from a folder of DICOM instance files.

Methods

Method	Description
__init__(fragment)	Creates an instance of this class.
setup(spec)
compute(op_input, op_output, context)	Performs computation for this operator and handlesI/O.
load_data_to_studies(input_path)	Load DICOM data from files into DICOMStudy objects in a list.
populate_study_attributes(study, sop_instance)	Populates study level attributes in the study data structure.
populate_series_attributes(series, sop_instance)	Populates series level attributes in the study data structure.