[vtk-developers] A NIFTI Reader for VTK

[David Gobbi]

No, I didn't.  The NIFTI library doesn't provide very much in terms
of functionality (NIFTI is a very simple file format).  About the only
thing I would have from it would be the function to byte-swap the
header.  So I didn't see the point of bringing another third-party
library into VTK.  Not for a file format that is just a fixed-format
header followed by raw data.

 - David

On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 10:49 AM, Bill Lorensen <bill.lorensen at gmail.com> wrote:
> It seems you did not use the nifti library?
>
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 12:20 PM, David Gobbi <david.gobbi at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I've pushed a topic with a reader/writer for the NIFTI file format:
>> http://review.source.kitware.com/#/t/2160/
>>
>> Overall, it's made to be similar to the ITK NIFTI-IO, so it is
>> quite different from the paraview NIFTI classes.  The main
>> thing is how it deals with dimensions:
>>
>> 1) It does not filter (i.e. re-order) the x,y,z dimensions.  Instead,
>> it provides a matrix to to convert the raw image coordinates
>> into NIFTI coordinates (RAS coordinates).  Actually it provides
>> two such matrices: one for the NIFTI qform, and another for
>> the NIFTI sform.
>>
>> 2) Multi-dimensional NIFTI images are read as multi-component
>> VTK images.  So a NIFTI vector image becomes a VTK image
>> with 3 components.  A NIFTI tensor image becomes a VTK image
>> with 6 (or 9) components.  It's up to the application to determine
>> the intent of the data.
>>
>> 3) The time dimension is ignored unless a specific flag
>> "TimeAsVector" is set.  If that flag is set, then subsequent
>> time points are read into subsequent scalar components. In other
>> words, a time image becomes a vector image.  This is a trick
>> that I've been using for years to deal with 4D images in VTK.
>>
>> 4) There isn't much support for NIFTI metadata yet.
>>
>> I'd be glad to hear feedback from anyone who is familiar with
>> NIFTI.
>>
>>  - David
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