# General principles We use [JSON](http://www.json.org/) to represent metadata that is either passed to the converter into DICOM, or that is extracted from DICOM representation. As such, you will need to have some understanding of both DICOM and JSON if you want to use dcmqi. We provide the following tools that can help you use dcmqi more effectively. * [dicom-dump](https://atom.io/packages/dicom-dump) is an extension for [Atom](http://atom.io) text editor that can be used to explore the content of DICOM data * [dcmqi validators](http://qiicr.org/dcmqi/#/validators) web app can be used to see examples of metadata JSON for specific object types, to explore the schema, and to validate your own metadata JSON against the schema You can check out our [Learning resources](https://github.com/qiicr/dcmqi-guide/tree/701551eff9e3b154ca8484a05d3554f694681489/user_guide/resources.md) section for some reference material about JSON and DICOM that we found helpful. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://qiicr.gitbook.io/dcmqi-guide/opening/general.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.