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Hi Mark,

Thank you very much for your explanations.

1. Under "Intro to FSLView" last line "They don't have to have the same number of timepoints." Supposing that one image file has 2 timepoints and the other has 100 timepoints. I load both to fslview to view them at the same time. Since they have different number of timepoints, how do they synchronize with each other?

2. Under Viewing Timeseries (4D Images) the paragraph above the Histogram Toolbox figure. " Could you please explain what is demeaning and how it works?

3. Similarly, "choose to turn on the "%" button [4], which shows the y-axis as a % of the mean level". Could you please explain what you mean by "mean level" and how to calculate the % of the mean level? By pressing the %, the limits of the y-axis in this example changes from [-600 600] to [-3 3].

4. In Section fslstats, "This is because there are lots of empty voxels in the image (because the data has been brain-extracted)." In the Ortho view, the brain is in the center of each of the 3 views. Does empty voxel means voxel in black color? Does that include region surrounding the brain (i.e. every voxel/pixel in each view window that is outside the brain) or just voxels in black inside the brain?

5.The sentence above "Run fslstats highres -m -M" in Section fslstats. "..but there is a large tail of very low background voxels. Tell the histogram to use log scale..." What do you mean by "low background voxels"? The tail is to represent voxels of HIGH intensity values.

6. Under Section fslmaths, 3rd paragraph: "the robust range is quiet small, with most change showing up as motion effects round the edge of the brain." The robust range is quiet small because "fslstats imdiffpercent -r -R" gives [-47.78 37.69] as the robust range. Am I right? How can you tell "most change showing up as motion effects rund the edge of the brain"?

7. Performing "fslmaths image0 -sub image1 imdiff" and "fslmaths imdiff -div image0 -mul 100 imdiffpercent" and then viewing the histogram of imdiff and imdiffpercent show that there are voxels of negative intensities. What does negative intensity mean?

8. Under "Using the gradient threshold option (-g)" in Section "Troubleshooting Brain Extraction (Optional)", a) What is mean by "cerebellum is underestimated"?
b) "This option causes the overall fractional threshold (controlled globally by -f) to vary linearly with slice number - to get smaller to the bottom and bigger at the top, or vice versa." How do I change the direction?
c) In command line, we can set -f -g. How about in the bet GUI? It seems that under the GUI, we can only set the gradient threshold option (-g) under "Threshold gradient; positive values give larger brain outline at bottom, smaller at top."

9. There is a typo in "fslsplit and fslmerge". It should be "rm vol0002* vol0006*" rather than "rm vol0002* vol0005*"

10. The line above Section fslroi. "Also try concatenating (merging) in z instead of t and view in fslview; why does nothing happen when you try to turn on the movie loop?" 
a) I got 8 brain images lining up vertically on top of each other. Am I doing something wrong? 
b) Why does nothing happen when I try to turn on the movie loop?

Thank you.


Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2013 22:25:53 +0000
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [FSL] Questions from Intro Practical
To: [log in to unmask]






Hi,



1. In the last sentence of "Viewing Atlases", ".. with the 
full probability information shown as a gradation of colour." What is 
the convention used in the gradation of color?





The colour maps are arbitrary.  Red-Yellow is commonly used, which has yellow for larger values and red for smaller ones.


2. Under "Viewing the results" in BET. "Change the 
transparency and colour of the overlay so that you can get a better view
 of the successes of the brain extraction." How do I change the colour?





Use the image info widget and change the lookup table - see the fslview documentation at:
http://fsl.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/fslview/
 


3. Under "fslstats" in FSLUTILS, "Slightly confusingly, the 
robust range doesn't seem to be doing the same thing for the left and 
right tails." What do you mean here?





This is just meant to indicate that the values do not appear at 
similar looking points with respect to the ends of the histogram.


4. "Click on the histogram toolbox button [3] and turn off 
the ignore zeros and press OK." After I turned off "ignore zeros", I saw
 a spike of amplitude about 6.9e6 at zero. Is this because of "lots of 
empty voxels in the image (because
 the data has been brain-extracted)"?





Yes.


5. "Now it is clear that the robust range limits make more sense." I don't understand.




a. When I issued "fslstats highres -R -r", I got: 0.0 32767 0 
16711.1699. In the histogram, there is a hill-like shape from 0 to 
2.1e4. Then, the signal approaches zero with a small peak (a triangle) 
at around 3.3e4. So, an absolute range of [0 32767] makes
 sense. As for the robust range, it is [0 16711.1699]. From the 
histogram, 1.6e4 is not the tail. About 2.2e4 is. Could you please let 
me know why it gave 1.6e4 rather than a value around 2.2e4?





The upper robust range is closer to the 98th percentile in this case.


b.When I unchecked "ignore zero", I saw a large spike of 
amplitude about 6.85e6 at 0 intensity. Is this because the data has been
 extracted so that there are lots of empty voxels in the image?





Yes.


c. When I issued "fslstats highres -1 1 -R -r", I got: 11.0 
32767.0 2696.99 18976.72. The histogram shows that there are non-zero 
number of voxels from Intensity 0 to about 2.3e4. Why a robust range of 
[2696.99 18976.72] makes more sense?





It is more like the 2nd and 98th percentiles (ignoring the very ends of the range).


d. When I issued "fslview egepi" and viewed the histogram, I
 found the curve approaching the x and y axes asymptotically. The number
 of voxels with zero intensity is 36345. In the case of highres, the 
number of voxels with zero intensity
 is 7e6. So, there are fewer voxels with exactly 0 intensity as the text
 mentioned. Why?





It is to do with brain extraction.


e. In egepi, the tail of the histogram can be considered 
from Intensity 3000 to 2e4. The tail of highres is from around 2e4 to 
3.5e4 which is longer.  By "large tail of very low background voxels", 
do you just look at the curve of egepi
 alone rather than comparing it with the curve in highres? Why highres 
has a longer tail and at a higher Intensity than the egepi curve?





The background voxels have a small value and are reflected by the left tail.  No comparison between these images was intended.



All the best,
Mark






Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2013 22:25:53 +0000
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [FSL] Questions from Intro Practical
To: [log in to unmask]






Hi,



1. In the last sentence of "Viewing Atlases", ".. with the full probability information shown as a gradation of colour." What is the convention used in the gradation of color?





The colour maps are arbitrary.  Red-Yellow is commonly used, which has yellow for larger values and red for smaller ones.


2. Under "Viewing the results" in BET. "Change the transparency and colour of the overlay so that you can get a better view of the successes of the brain extraction." How do I change the colour?





Use the image info widget and change the lookup table - see the fslview documentation at:
http://fsl.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/fslview/
 


3. Under "fslstats" in FSLUTILS, "Slightly confusingly, the robust range doesn't seem to be doing the same thing for the left and right tails." What do you mean here?





This is just meant to indicate that the values do not appear at similar looking points with respect to the ends of the histogram.


4. "Click on the histogram toolbox button [3] and turn off the ignore zeros and press OK." After I turned off "ignore zeros", I saw a spike of amplitude about 6.9e6 at zero. Is this because of "lots of empty voxels in the image (because
 the data has been brain-extracted)"?





Yes.


5. "Now it is clear that the robust range limits make more sense." I don't understand.




a. When I issued "fslstats highres -R -r", I got: 0.0 32767 0 16711.1699. In the histogram, there is a hill-like shape from 0 to 2.1e4. Then, the signal approaches zero with a small peak (a triangle) at around 3.3e4. So, an absolute range of [0 32767] makes
 sense. As for the robust range, it is [0 16711.1699]. From the histogram, 1.6e4 is not the tail. About 2.2e4 is. Could you please let me know why it gave 1.6e4 rather than a value around 2.2e4?





The upper robust range is closer to the 98th percentile in this case.


b.When I unchecked "ignore zero", I saw a large spike of amplitude about 6.85e6 at 0 intensity. Is this because the data has been extracted so that there are lots of empty voxels in the image?





Yes.


c. When I issued "fslstats highres -1 1 -R -r", I got: 11.0 32767.0 2696.99 18976.72. The histogram shows that there are non-zero number of voxels from Intensity 0 to about 2.3e4. Why a robust range of [2696.99 18976.72] makes more sense?





It is more like the 2nd and 98th percentiles (ignoring the very ends of the range).


d. When I issued "fslview egepi" and viewed the histogram, I found the curve approaching the x and y axes asymptotically. The number of voxels with zero intensity is 36345. In the case of highres, the number of voxels with zero intensity
 is 7e6. So, there are fewer voxels with exactly 0 intensity as the text mentioned. Why?





It is to do with brain extraction.


e. In egepi, the tail of the histogram can be considered from Intensity 3000 to 2e4. The tail of highres is from around 2e4 to 3.5e4 which is longer.  By "large tail of very low background voxels", do you just look at the curve of egepi
 alone rather than comparing it with the curve in highres? Why highres has a longer tail and at a higher Intensity than the egepi curve?





The background voxels have a small value and are reflected by the left tail.  No comparison between these images was intended.



All the best,
Mark