Sorry- I did not carefully read Johns reply. I think he is saying that without a mat file, a matrix that is not identical to eye(4) is generated as a default space. To get around this, lets call this matrix MM for "mystery matrix", and we want to solve for M3 so that MM * vc_2 = M3 * vc_1 The "mystery matrix" can be found with spm_get_space, which is in the recent updates to spm2. So, from before: vc_2 = inv(M2) * M1 * vc_1 inv(MM) * MM * vc_2 = inv(M2) * M1 * vc_1 MM * vc_2 = inv(MM) * inv(M2) * M1 * vc_1 M3 = inv(MM) * inv(M2) * M1 Ken