# Install libdicom with Homebrew

DICOM WSI read library. Version 1.3.0 via Homebrew; verified from local package data.

## Install

```sh
sudo av install brew:libdicom
```

Additional install commands:

### macOS

- Homebrew (100%):

```sh
brew install libdicom
```

  Evidence: provider-native install command

## Package facts

- **Package key:** brew:libdicom
- **Package manager:** Homebrew
- **Version:** 1.3.0
- **Source summary:** DICOM WSI read library
- **Homepage:** <https://github.com/ImagingDataCommons/libdicom>
- **Repository:** <https://github.com/ImagingDataCommons/libdicom>
- **Generated:** 2026-08-03T00:40:33+00:00

## Executables

- dcm-dump (alias)
- dcm-getframe (alias)

## Install behavior

- Bottle: not available

## Freshness

- Page generated: 2026-08-03
- Package-manager version: 1.3.0
## Project history and usage

libdicom is an Imaging Data Commons C library and command-line tool set for reading DICOM whole-slide imaging files. It is a newer, focused medical-imaging package built around fast metadata/frame access rather than general image rendering.

### Project history

The upstream README describes libdicom as a free, MIT-licensed, fast, cross-platform, dependency-light C library and command-line toolkit for DICOM WSI files. It returns compressed frame data rather than RGB pixel arrays, and points users who want image processing toward OpenSlide 4.0 and later.

GitHub release notes show 1.0.x, 1.1.0, and 1.2.0 release-candidate work with fixes for memory use, thread-safety documentation, pointer ownership, DICOM catenation support, faster reads for files with an Extended Offset Table, and command-line behavior improvements.

### Adoption history

The package's adoption story is tightly connected to DICOM WSI and OpenSlide. The README states that OpenSlide 4.0 and later use libdicom to implement DICOM support, making libdicom a small but important bridge between medical-imaging standards and common open-source slide tooling.

### How it is used

Developers use the C API or Python bindings to inspect metadata and read compressed frame payloads from DICOM WSI files. Command-line users get dcm-dump for structured inspection and dcm-getframe for frame extraction workflows.

### Why package nerds care

libdicom is package-nerd interesting because it is a specialized C dependency created for a standards-heavy domain, has no broad dependency stack of its own, and lets larger imaging tools support DICOM WSI without each implementing frame indexing and parsing independently.

### Timeline

- 2023: OpenSlide 4.0 adoption of libdicom for DICOM WSI support was described in the libdicom README image/context.
- 2024: libdicom 1.1.0 release notes recorded memory-use, docs, pointer-ownership, and thread-safety improvements.
- 2025: libdicom 1.2.0-rc1 release notes added DICOM catenation support and faster reads for files with an Extended Offset Table but no fragmented-pixel-data sequence.
- 2026: The README build example referenced libdicom 1.3.0 source-tree naming.

### Related projects

- Imaging Data Commons is the upstream organization. OpenSlide 4.0 and later are the most important adjacent consumer named by upstream, while pylibdicom provides Python access to the C library.

### Sources

- <https://github.com/ImagingDataCommons/libdicom>
- <https://github.com/ImagingDataCommons/libdicom/releases>
- <https://libdicom.readthedocs.io/en/latest>
- <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ImagingDataCommons/libdicom/main/README.md>


## Security Notes

library-like package without higher-risk signals.

- **Geiger risk:** green / low
- library-like package without higher-risk signals


## Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub. [combined/libdicom.yml](https://github.com/automic-vault/db/blob/main/combined/libdicom.yml)


## Sources

- Nucleus package database
- Geiger risk classifier
- curated package history
- pkgdb category and tag curation