You can get clipping planes from a box widget and set it in the in the volume mapper.
This and most other generic DICOM image import, viewing, and processing features that you may consider adding to your application in the next few years are already available in extensible, customizable, VTK-based application frameworks, such as 3D Slicer, MITK, or various flavors or ParaView. So, if you want to build a full-featured, robust application then you can get there much quicker by relying on these frameworks for providing all the basic features. You can then focus your efforts on implementing the new, special features that distinguish your application from all the existing DICOM viewer/analysis/processing applications.