Add ecat to the list of known imageclasses to ease loading with .load()

[yarikoptic]

I am not sure if that is a logical thing to do -- just did it while testing nib-ls so decided to "ask" with this PR

[agramfort]

it might be a bit off topic but it would be cool to have a similar convenient load function for gifti. @matthew-brett if you're on it :)

[bcipolli]

@matthew-brett what about allowing load to return a list of images? People using Ecat would then simply need to be ready for that.

[matthew-brett]

Hmm - yes - I'd been thinking about that for a looooooooong time.

My best idea was one that Fernando suggested a while ago - to have a 'load_multi' function that could load things like ECAT as a list of images. Maybe we could load things like 4D niftti with this interface too, returning a list of 3D volumes, each with their own affines (as we would need to do, for motion corrected runs with individual affines, as saved by SPM.

How about a google hangout in the next few days? Tomorrow? If you're around I propose on the list and do a doodle for it.

[bcipolli]

@matthew-brett I'm away for the weekend, but OK to hangout next week. I'm fine if you simply have a discussion on the list as well--whatever works for you!

[matthew-brett]

Away for the weekend ? Crazy ! Surely the weekends are for intensive development work :)

OK - I'll have a think and write a small BIAP, to get my slower gears spinning. I'll try to get that done tomorrow for a discussion of some sort next week.

[bcipolli]

Sounds good. To tip my hand, my question is going to be: what's the benefit of load_multi over putting this into load and letting class functions decide whether to return an image or a list of images? In addition, I am concerned: would you have to know the contents of the Ecat file before loading it, in order to know which function to call?

Looking forward to your BIAP (whatever that means :) )

[matthew-brett]

Yes, sure, these are the important questions.

For ECAT, the idea would be you would always use load_multi.

Obviously for nifti you sometimes don't care about multiple affines and do want a single 4D image, other times you may want separate images.

I'm touched you are looking forward to the mysterious BIAP - A BIAP is a niBabel Increased Awesomeness Proposal : https://github.com/nipy/nibabel/wiki

[bcipolli]

LOL 👍