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Current neuroimaging software offer users an incredible opportunity toanalyze data using a variety of different algorithms. However, this hasresulted in a heterogeneous collection of specialized applicationswithout transparent interoperability or a uniform operating interface.

Nipype, an open-source, community-developed initiative under theumbrella ofNiPy, is a Python project that provides a uniform interfaceto existing neuroimaging software and facilitates interaction betweenthese packages within a single workflow. Nipype provides an environmentthat encourages interactive exploration of algorithms from differentpackages (e.g.,ANTS,SPM,FSL,FreeSurfer,Camino,MRtrix,MNE,AFNI,Slicer,DIPY), eases the design of workflows within and between packages, andreduces the learning curve necessary to use different packages. Nipype iscreating a collaborative platform for neuroimaging software developmentin a high-level language and addressing limitations of existing pipelinesystems.

Nipype allows you to:

  • easily interact with tools from different software packages

  • combine processing steps from different software packages

  • develop new workflows faster by reusing common steps from old ones

  • process data faster by running it in parallel on many cores/machines

  • make your research easily reproducible

  • share your processing workflows with the community

Reference

Gorgolewski K, Burns CD, Madison C, Clark D, Halchenko YO, Waskom ML, Ghosh SS.(2011). Nipype: a flexible, lightweight and extensible neuroimaging dataprocessing framework in Python. Front. Neuroinform. 5:13.Download

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