[MINC-users] [Fwd: OHBM Announcement 3/9/04]

[Andrew Janke]

On Thu, 10 Mar 2004, Yasser Ad-Dab'bagh wrote:

> Should we be concerned?

"perhaps".

I have been in contact with a few of the DFWG members in the last few days with
respect to this.  What seems to have happened so far is this:

  * NIfTI-1 is the patch-up job for the various forms of analyze.
     - this is actually a big improvement over previous versions.

  * NIfTI-2 is to be the replacement for ANALYZE that will be all-singing
       and all-dancing.

However no decision or specs are available so far for NIfTI-2.  Apparently a
number of the members of the comittee are all for just using MINC 1.2/2.0.
however there are some who are opposed to even HDF5 or NetCDF.  I have asked for
feedback on the problems these people on the comittee have against MINC 2.0 in
order that we might be able to alleviate their concerns with MINC 2.0.

I haven't recieved anything yet though.  Apaprently the group will be meeting
again soon to discuss NIfTI-2 in more detail.

In the meantime if you want your voice to be heard, send an email to the group
voicing your opinion, the more people who indicate that they would like to see
MINC 2.0 replace NIfTI-2 the better. However remember that the NIfTI group is
only concerned with Data formats for fMRI data.  Whilst MINC can (and does)  do
fMRI data, there is still a bit of work needed on MATLAB interfaces to MINC.


   http://nifti.nimh.nih.gov/


--
Andrew Janke   ( rotor@cmr.uq.edu.au || www.cmr.uq.edu.au/~rotor )
Australia->University of Queensland->Centre for Magnetic Resonance
W: +61 7 3365 4100  ||  H: +61 7 3800 4042  ||  M: +61 4 2138 8581



> -----Forwarded Message-----
> From: Organization for Human Brain Mapping <info@humanbrainmapping.org>
> To: yasser.ad-dabbagh@MAIL.MCGILL.CA
>
> We are writing on behalf of the Data Format Working Group (DFWG), a
> committee set up under the Neuroimaging Informatics Technology
> Initiative (NIfTI, http://nifti.nimh.nih.gov), which is jointly
> sponsored by NIMH and NINDS. We have been charged with arriving "at a
> technical solution to the problem of multiple data formats in fMRI." We
> have met several times and decided that one of our first priorities is
> to describe and attempt to merge the variants of the ANALYZE(TM) 7.5
> image header that are being used by the developers of the major fMRI
> data analysis packages.
>
> We have defined a compromise data format, dubbed NIfTI-1, that is based
> on these variants and is "mostly compatible" with the ANALYZE(TM) 7.5
> header, while using many of the "unused and lesser-used" fields for
> fMRI-specific purposes. Developers of five of the major fMRI data
> analysis packages (FSL, SPM, AFNI, BrainVoyager, and FreeSurfer) have
> agreed to use this compromise format in the future, and will support
> both input and output of the NIfTI-1 format. A considerable effort was
> required to reach agreement with all of these developers. Given the
> extremely limited space in the 348 byte header, it is unlikely that any
> substantial changes will be possible in the NIfTI-1 format if we are to
> retain the support of all five packages.
>
> We envisage NIfTI-1 replacing the current range of ANALYZE 7.5 variants
> both for file interchange and data storage.  NIfTI-1, while still
> limited, contains a considerably richer set of metadata than exists in
> the ANALYZE-based formats.
>
> As of this message, the NIfTI-1 format specification, demonstration
> programs, and related documents are being released to the general
> neuroimaging community on the DFWG website
> http://nifti.nimh.nih.gov/dfwg/ along with an interactive forum for
> comments and discussion. The DFWG committee will next meet in early May
> 2004, and any comments you care to make and would like to have
> considered at the next committee meeting should be received by April 15,
> 2004.
>