Overview of the SVT 5.2 Software

The SVT software is a tool for determining the statistically significant regions of activation in single or multi-subject human brain functional studies. It can be also applied to structural brain data for analyzing developmental, dementia and other changes of anatomy over time. All routines are invoked as standard UNIX commands and neither expect nor allow user interaction once the command has been issued. The series of 'C' subroutines which comprise the SVT library can be easily incorporated into the user's site specific programs adapted to their particular needs.

SVT version 5.2 includes a graphical user interface (GUI) written in Tcl/Tk for use on SGI machines. The user, however, needs to re-link, edit and revise the "*.c++" files, especially the system calls within them, because it is currently set up to work in the LONI's UNIX directory framework. Currently, the SVT package does not provide any graphics or image display capabilities, however, if the user has MNI's "Display" and "register" (display ftp) packages the GUI for SVT 5.2 allows the use of these fine visualization tools. Some file format converters are included in this software and interactive calls to "minc2raw" and "raw2minc" ( ftp minc package) are employed by the SVT GUI. All of the input files are supposed to have been pre-registered (e.g., AIR) volumetric 1 byte per pixel data sets of size 181x217y181z, so that they fit within the common anatomical reference space and the associated probabilistic atlas. However, if the SVT GUI is used than the user is walked through the entire procedure step-by-step, from flipping and inverting (when necessary) the raw data through volumetric registration, intensity normalization, statistical analysis (SVT), and visualization of the results (Display/register). Quantitative goodness of warp evaluation is recommended prior to executing the SVT routines (e.g., WAIR). See technical notes for more detailed description of data formats, image-registration and warp evaluation. A collection of batch files and shell script are provided for incorporating the SVT software within the framework of the AIR and MINC environments. These include preprocessing, warping and file-format converting scripts.

This package was originally developed to work on Sun SPARC and SGI stations using the 'C' language compiler provided by Sun/SGI as part of the standard system software. If you currently use an 8 bits/pixel file format on a Sun SPARC station equipped with the standard 'C' compiler, have at least (XX Bytes + 16 MB) of RAM (where XX = (Number of data sets) *181*217*181 Bytes), and are familiar with the UNIX operating system, you should be able to install and use the SVT package without additional assistance, even if you know nothing about 'C' programming. However, if any of these conditions is not met, it is likely that you will need the assistance of a 'C' programmer who is familiar with the UNIX operating system.

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