Is it possible to open multiple linked afni GUIs programmatically?

AFNI Message Board
1

Dear afni experts,

When exploring MRI data with afni, it is often necessary to open multiple linked afni GUI windows in order to see and compare multiple coregisted datasets side-by-side interactively, especially when comparing the impact of different MR sequence, experiment design, or data processing parameters.

Very often, I find myself need to re-open the same set of views (even with the same underlay/overlay datasets) repeatedly, after closing them all for various reasons. This is pretty time-consuming and frustrating (press the New button 3~6 time, choose underlay and overlay for each of them, adjust threshold settings, etc.).

Is there a way to open multiple linked afni GUIs with specified underlay/overlay datasets and perhaps specified threshold values among other adjustable settings programmatically?

Thanks~

2

Sure.

See the 4 plugout_drive commands in @DriveAfni
(in the binary directory). The first 2 work with
controller A, the latter 2 work with controller B.

The typical way one opens an afni window is with
something like:

-com ‘OPEN_WINDOW A.sagittalimage geom=+45+430’

Change ‘A’ to ‘B’ and now it is for controller B,
which will open up new controller and image
windows.

  • rick
3

Thanks, rick! This is really cool!

In case someone else is also interested in similar functionality, here is my current approach:
After opening multiple afni controllers, I save my multi-controller layout (as well as underlay, overlay, color, threshold, etc. associated with each controller) by:
Define Datamode > Misc > Save Layout > layout01.script (N.B.: file name must contain “script”)

And then reload this layout by:
$ load_layout.py layout01.script

With the help of a short custom python script “load_layout.py”:

#!/usr/bin/env python

-- coding: utf-8 --

from future import print_function
import sys, subprocess

if name == ‘main’:
afni_script = sys.argv[1]
with open(afni_script) as f:
lines = f.readlines()
com = ‘; ‘.join([line.strip() for line in lines if not line.startswith(’//’)]);
subprocess.call(‘afni -com “CLOSE_WINDOW A.axialimage;
CLOSE_WINDOW A.sagittalimage; CLOSE_WINDOW A.coronalimage”
-com “{0}”’.format(com), shell=True)

For more information, check
plugout_drive as a demo plugout as well as a tool
“-com” option of afni
All available commands

4

That is great!

Note that there is also a -layout option in afni.

  • rick