User Tools
Workspace File
FScan can handle multiple data files simultaneously. A group of related data files is organized in a “workspace” and that organization can be saved in a workspace description file (WDF). A single workspace can include image data files (color or grayscale), 1-D time series data (e.g. task timing, behavioral responses, physiological recordings, etc.), 3D surface reconstructions, region of interest (ROI) text annotations, or commentary text. A workspace also keeps track of spatial and temporal alignment information (if necessary) so that coordinates in any data set within the workspace can be automatically transformed to coordinates in any other data set. Any single instance of fScan can handle up to 2 work spaces at the same time. When 2 workspaces are opened together, additional alignment information can be added for linking spatial locations between the workspaces.
A workspace description file (WDF) saves any alignment matrix created to match anatomical and functional files. It also stores records any scheduling or behavioral files linked to functional datasets. Data descriptors such as “datatype”, “subtype”, “taskname”, can also be specified within the WDF if they are not within the original data header. A workspace points to data files and provides a convenient way of organizing files and adding information without altering the original files.
Any number of WDF's can be created to organize subsets of data files in different ways. For example, you might link all data files from one MRI exam in one workspace, and link all DTI datasets from different exams in another. For a single MRI exam, different workspace files can be used to store different subsets of data, or can describe different stages of data analysis.
The ability to load two different workspaces into fScan is useful for registering an MRI exam session to a standard brain atlas. Loading the MNIATLAS (based on the Montreal Neurological Institute standard brain) into Workspace 2, for example, is a single fScan command. Aligning your subject's T1 anatomical dataset to the atlas T1 brain is all that is needed to register all datasets in Workspace 1 to any atlas dataset. Similarly, for longitudinal studies you can load WDF's for two exams of the same subject as different workspaces, align their anatomical images, and then overlay any image from either exam onto images from the other. Pairs of workspace WDF's and their alignment transforms can be stored in XML format as workspaces files (WSF).
Because WDF's and WSF's contain pointers to other files, you may need to modify your WDF if you rename your actual data files or move them to different directories.
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