read.fs.volume.nrrd: Read volume data from a file in NRRD format.

In freesurferformats: Read and Write 'FreeSurfer' Neuroimaging File Formats

Read volume data from a file in NRRD format.

Description

Reads a volume from a file in NRRD format (.nrrd), i.e. the format that 3D Slicer, ITK/SimpleITK, DTI-TK, DSI Studio and the teem tools use. Detached headers (.nhdr, whose data are in separate files) and gzip-compressed files (.nrrd.gz) are supported as well, and the reader is implemented in this package, so no additional R package or external software is needed. The values are returned in the order in which they are stored in the file, and NRRD stores the first axis fastest, which is the order that R uses for arrays as well, so the returned array is shaped exactly like the volume described by the header.

Usage

read.fs.volume.nrrd(
  filepath,
  flatten = FALSE,
  with_header = FALSE,
  drop_empty_dims = FALSE
)

Arguments

filepath	character string, path to the file in NRRD format.
flatten	logical, whether to return a numeric vector instead of a multidimensional array.
with_header	logical, whether to return an fs.volume instance (a named list with the entries data and header) instead of the data array. The header contains the geometry of the volume in the vox2ras_matrix entry, see read.nrrd.header.
drop_empty_dims	logical, whether to drop dimensions of length 1 from the returned data, e.g. the frame axis of a 3D volume that was stored as a 4D array with one volume. Note that NRRD files state their dimensionality explicitly, so unlike the MGH or NIfTI readers this one only drops dimensions that the file actually has.

Value

a multidimensional array of the dimensions stated in the file header, a numeric vector if flatten is TRUE, or an fs.volume instance if with_header is TRUE. The data type of the array follows the file: integer for the integer types up to 32 bit, double for the floating point types and for the 64 bit integer types (which have no R equivalent, values above 2^53 lose precision, and a warning is raised in that case).

Note

The data are returned exactly as they are stored in the file: the reader does not reorient, rescale or otherwise change them. Use the vox2ras_matrix entry of the header to map voxel indices to RAS+ coordinates, which is the space in which FreeSurfer, NIfTI and the rest of this package work. NRRD files that state the LPS space (which is what the ITK tools write) are handled: the matrix is converted to RAS. For a volume whose file states no space information at all, no matrix is available (the entry is NULL), since any matrix would be a guess.

Diffusion MRI data in NRRD format carry their b-value and their gradient directions in custom header fields (the convention of the teem tools, DTI-TK and 3D Slicer). They are parsed into the dwi entry of the header by read.nrrd.header. The gradients are given in the image frame, and the measurement_frame entry of the dwi list is the rotation that maps them into the frame in which the measurement was performed; a caller that needs the gradients in that frame has to apply it (multiply the vector by the matrix). The values can be handed to read.dti.gradients together with one b-value per volume, see the examples.

Examples

nrrd_file <- system.file("extdata", "nrrd", "vol_u8_raw.nrrd",
  package = "freesurferformats", mustWork = TRUE
)
vol <- read.fs.volume.nrrd(nrrd_file)
dim(vol)

# Read the geometry as well:
volh <- read.fs.volume.nrrd(nrrd_file, with_header = TRUE)
volh$header$vox2ras_matrix

## Not run: 
# Read a DWI volume and use its gradient table:
hdr <- read.nrrd.header("dwi.nrrd")
gradients <- read.dti.gradients(hdr$dwi$bvec, rep(hdr$dwi$b_value, hdr$dwi$num_gradients))

## End(Not run)

freesurferformats documentation built on Sept. 25, 2026, 1:07 a.m.