Value Representation

OB Other Byte

Category
binary-stream
Max Length
2^32-2 bytes
Fixed Length
No
Source
PS3.5 §6.2

Definition

A string of bytes where the encoding of the contents is specified by the negotiated Transfer Syntax. OB is a VR that is insensitive to Byte Ordering. The string of bytes shall be padded with a single trailing NULL byte value (00H) when necessary to achieve even length.

Attributes using OB

43 DICOM attributes declare this VR. Showing the first 24.

Working with OB in integration code

VR-aware transformations are where most DICOM integration bugs hide — truncating a PN's 5-component structure, misaligning OB padding, or dropping leading zeros on IS. Saga IT builds production DICOM pipelines that respect VR semantics across Mirth Connect transformers, DIMSE gateways, and cloud DICOM services.