How you upload your data depends on how you intend to use it. You can choose between sockets of type Image or DICOMImageSet.

Data uploaded to Image sockets is converted to SimpleITK (mha) for radiology or TIFF for pathology. For most use cases, this is the recommended option. In challenges, this format significantly reduces the workload for participants because the images are provided in an easy-to-use, analysis-ready format.

Data uploaded to DICOMImageSet sockets is not converted but stored as DICOM, following a rigorous de-identification process. In challenges, this means participants will need to handle DICOM parsing and interpretation themselves. Choosing this format may be appropriate when:

1. You want to run a challenge that evaluates algorithms using DICOM as their direct input.
2. You want to publish an algorithm that uses DICOM as their input.
3. You need to use DICOM tag information in your challenge or algorithm. Note: Many DICOM tags are removed or replaced with dummy values during de-identification, see also this readme. If you need structured metadata, providing it separately in JSON format can be an alternative to using DICOMImageSet.