This document is intended to present a comprehensive and updated list of any global method, class, constant and error code that could be of interest for a developer using the QTPluginDicom services.

If you need just a quick reminder to a parameter of a method or a property of a class or something like this that you can not remember, you are in the right place.

If you are looking for detailed informations about plugin classes, global methods or anything else, you should take a look to other documents provided with the QTPluginDicom.

Detailed technical informations can be found at the documentation.

The page provides an updated list of changes, bug fixes, and new features introduced with the latest plugin version.

The page provides a summary of the plugin features grouped by functional areas.


The QTPluginDicom features a set of classes that lets you work with DICOM (acronym for Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) data structures. A few of such classes was originally present into the version 5.5 of the QTPlugin. Later (starting from version 6.0 of the QTPlugin), has been decided to split into a different plugin the implementation of the Dicom services; in fact, such services are not strictly connected to the traditional area of interest of a QuickTime developer, but, anyway, they can accomplish their tasks using the QuickTime API.
The QTPluginDicom classes enable you to:

  • read/write data elements from/to data sets
  • create anonymous copies of data elements
  • create DICOMDIR (containing a Basic Directory Information data structure) files from scratch
  • playback, to some extent, pixel data
  • convert, to some extent, sequences of frames and still images into the appropriate pixel data elements and associate them to DICOM data structures

The latest QTPluginDicom APIs include 23 classes, and 1 module that provides a few utility routines.

Following the indications from RealSoftware that discourage the usage of global methods in favor of modules, all of the global methods implemented by the QTPluginDicom has been removed starting from version 6.6.0 of the plugin. The document provides an exahustive list of the parts of the plugin API that have been deprecated or removed and provides the references to the alternative properties or methods that enable you to accomplish the same tasks.


With the exception of modules that provide general helper facilities, objects in QTPluginDicom are arranged in a hierarchy. This means that an object inherits the properties, methods, and events (if available) of its super class (the classes above it in the hierarchy) and may contain properties, methods, and events that are unique to the object. Also, all of the classes defined by this plugin are subclassed from some other class defined by the QTPlugin; this implies that, in order to use any service provided by the QTPluginDicom, the QTPlugin has to be installed and loaded.
A , for example, is a subclass of a which, in turn, is derived from which is a subclass of (the base class for all of the objects belonging to the QTPlugin media library suite).

Note that not all of the classes can be instantiated and used; some of them are "abstract", that is declare common properties and methods that will be implemented by their subclasses.

In this document, as in any other plugin reference document, each class’s super class (and all other classes above it in the hierarchy) is given; the properties, methods, and events of its super class (and all other classes above it in the hierarchy) are available to that class.

The provides a graphical representation of the hierarchy of the plugin classes and their relationships with the classes defined by the .