Annotating DICOMs with commonly acceptable anatomical references, such as vertebrae, creates an anatomy-based referencing system specific to each patient. This enables users to derive measurements from within two annotated slices within the original imaging coordinate system of the CT image and compare these measurements across individuals. The region between these two annotations may be called a "slab". Slabs can be used to compare measurements in cohorts with variable scan field-of-views. This technology also annotates the middle slice of each vertebra (from T1 to the bottom of the sacrum) for single-slice, legacy research backward compatibility.

Automatic DICOM annotation is available in DAFS.