A major milestone in Digital NDT was reached this February— the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) E07.11 subcommittee published the new ASTM standard E3147-18 on DICONDE Interoperability.  This new standard should help further establish DICONDE in Digital NDT environments and increase the benefits of its use.

Established in 1993, DICONDE (Digital Imaging and Communication for Non-Destructive Evaluation) is an imaging and archiving technology standard that defines all image attributes and elements in a universal format. DICONDE was based on DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine), a proven imaging and archiving standard in the medical industry. In 2004, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) E07.11 subcommittee made DICONDE the standard (E2339-11) for NDT (nondestructive testing) imaging.

Before we explore the question that seems to be on the minds of those in the nondestructive testing (NDT) industry and every other industry these days—Should we move our data to the cloud?—let’s discuss some background on how we got to this point in NDT.

Driven by immense pressure to improve productivity and reduce costs, the medical industry has transitioned to digital imaging and archiving over the past two decades. Seeing the benefits of this digital transition, other industries are now following suit, leveraging the technology pioneered and proven by the highly regulated medical imaging industry.