Neuroimaging Format Registry

[nx10]

Hey! We met at OHBM in Brisbane and wanted to follow up on that idea we discussed.

We'd like our different neuro tools (Styx, niwrap, boutiques, etc.) to have a standardized way of describe/identify file formats.

Since you've already got many of these format definitions here, what do you think about extracting them into a simple JSON registry that other tools could use? Just the identifiers, extensions, maybe magic numbers and some other metadata.

Vaguely something like:

{
  "nifti-1": {
    "extensions": [".nii", ".nii.gz"],
    "magic": "6E2B3100"
  },
  "dicom": {
    "extensions": [".dcm", ".ima"],
    "magic": "4449434D"
  }
}

(Simplified here of course)

Would make it way easier for different frameworks to stay consistent. Happy to help put it together if you're interested!

Edit: Could vaguely follow/align with the IANA media types

[tclose]

Hey @nx10 , sorry I completely missed this (I need to sort out my notification settings). Maybe this is best discussed in a meeting. The reason I haven't gone for a static definition like the one you have proposed is that every now and again you get a a funky format that isn't definable by extensions and magic numbers and file-formats also handles "sets" of files (e.g. JSON side cars or series of DICOM images). I have tried to make my definitions a super-set of IANA media types and they are all referenceable via "mime-like" strings (e.g. medimage/dicom-series) so you could just use those strings to reference the file formats if you like