The DICOM Message Service Element supports communication between peer DIMSE Service Users. A DIMSE Service User acts in one of two roles:
DIMSE Service Users make use of service primitives that are provided by the DIMSE Service Provider. The DIMSE Service Provider is an abstraction of the totality of those entities that provide DIMSE services to peer DIMSE Service Users. A service primitive shall be one of the following types:
These primitives (which are shown in Figure 7-1) are used as follows to successfully complete a DIMSE service:
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The invoking DIMSE Service User issues a request primitive to the DIMSE Service Provider.
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The DIMSE Service Provider receives the request primitive from the invoking DIMSE Service User and issues an indication primitive to the performing DIMSE Service User.
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The performing DIMSE Service User receives the indication primitive from the DIMSE Service Provider and performs the requested service.
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The performing DIMSE Service User issues a response primitive to the DIMSE Service Provider.
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The DIMSE Service Provider receives the response primitive from the performing DIMSE Service User and issues a confirmation primitive to the invoking DIMSE Service User.
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The invoking DIMSE Service User receives the confirmation primitive from the DIMSE Service Provider completing the DIMSE service.
DIMSE provides two types of information transfer services that are used by DICOM Application Entities:
Notification services enable one DICOM Application Entity to notify another about the occurrence of an event or change of state. The definition of the notification and the consequent behavior of the Application Entities is dependent upon the Service Class and Information Object Definitions. See PS3.3 and PS3.4.
Operation services enable one DICOM Application Entity to explicitly request an operation to be performed upon a SOP Instance managed by another DICOM Application Entity.