[MINC-users] the future of MINC and MINC support - need 2 min.

Tue May 27 08:15:57 EDT 2025

Hi Louis,

The Mouse Imaging Centre is very invested in MINC too and we use it for all our imaging modalities – MRI, CT, ultrasound, optical.   We rarely use dicom data though and I had not been aware of the dicom conversion issue you mentioned.  I think keeping MINC alive is worthwhile.  Tracking vendor DICOM format changes is a Sisyphean task though.  I wonder if the way forward is to convert files to MINC via NIFTI/BIDS or some other intermediary.

cheers,

John

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
John G. Sled, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist, Hospital for Sick Children
Canada Research Chair in Biomedical Imaging
Professor and Vice-Chair, Department of Medical Biophysics,
  University of Toronto

Hospital for Sick Children                       Phone: 416 813-7654 x309557
Mouse Imaging Centre                             Fax: 647 837-5832
555 University Avenue                            Email: john.sled at utoronto.ca
Toronto, Ontario
M5G 1X8 Canada

From: MINC-users <minc-users-bounces at bic.mni.mcgill.ca> on behalf of Khoo Hui Ming <khoo at nsurg.med.osaka-u.ac.jp>
Date: Tuesday, May 27, 2025 at 7:57 AM
To: MINC users mailing list <minc-users at bic.mni.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: [MINC-users] the future of MINC and MINC support - need 2 min.
[You don't often get email from khoo at nsurg.med.osaka-u.ac.jp. Learn why this is important at https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification ]

Hi Louis,

Thank you for the support that you and your team have been doing over all
these years.

Yes, I am still using minc even though I have moved from Montreal to Japan.
I will continue to use minc if the support can be sustained in the future.

Thank you.

Best regards,

Hui Ming Khoo, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor,
Department of Neurosurgery,
Osaka University,
Suita, Japan.

On Mon, 26 May 2025, 23:19 Louis Collins, Mr, <louis.collins at mcgill.ca>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I’m sending this email to bic-annouce, minc-users and minc-developers.
> Forgive me if you get multiple similar copies, each one has different
> questions addressed to the specific mailing list audience.
>
> Along with cutting edge neuro-imaging devices, the MINC software tools are
> an integral part of the success that have enabled the BIC to achieve
> world-wide recognition in neuroscience.  Unfortunately, a recent DICOM to
> MINC conversion issue (left-right flipping in MRI) has called into question
> the future of minc.
>
> The minc file format, API, and all image analysis pipelines have been
> supported mostly on a volunteer basis for at least the past decade.  While
> I’ve never had grants to support minc directly, I’ve used funds from other
> projects to support Vlad’s salary as he spent half his time to work on minc
> tools as we needed them in my lab.  We’ve also invested a lot of time (and
> $$) fixing bugs and assisting other groups with their processing needs.
> Mallar, Jason, Andrew and others have done the same.  At this time, my
> grants are running out, and I can no longer afford to support minc as we’ve
> done in the past. for a few months last fall, Julien provided some
> financial help (20% of an FTE), but that aid ended early this year.
>
> I learned about this new dcm2mnc issue last week that affects all those
> that use Seimens MRI data in minc format acquired in the past few months.
>
> This issue calls into the question the sufficiency of volunteer MNC
> support. Some have suggested to drop MINC altogether and to use other tools
> based on nifti/BIDS.  I believe that MINC support requires specific funding.
>
>
> For everyone in the minc-users list,  I am curious to know how many people
> are using MINC at present.
>
> Please respond with “YES - I’m using MINC” (or "no, not using MINC”).
> If YES, please also say if you’d like to continue using minc.
> If no, would you use minc if it was supported/documented?
>
> Feel free to reply all in this mailing list, or directly to me by email.
>
> my goal is to get a count of those using minc tools as soon as possible.
> there is a meeting this week to discuss the future of minc.
>
> thanks.
>
> -Louis
> _______________________________________________
> MINC-users at bic.mni.mcgill.ca
> https://mailman.bic.mni.mcgill.ca/mailman/listinfo/minc-users
>
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