# Reading MNI Tag point file in Slicer

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/reading-mni-tag-point-file-in-slicer/9488>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [December 13, 2019, 6:30pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/reading-mni-tag-point-file-in-slicer/9488 "2019-12-13T18:30:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Tina\_Kapur](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/tina_kapur/32/3140_2.png) [@Tina\_Kapur](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/Tina_Kapur)\
**Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 6:30pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/reading-mni-tag-point-file-in-slicer/9488/1 "2019-12-13T18:30:03Z")

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Are there any converters from MNI Tag point file format to any fiducial format supported by Slicer?  
Here is an example file I am trying to read from the RESECT dataset of intraoperative (brain tumor resection) ultrasound images.

MNI Tag Point File  
Volumes = 2;  
% Case 1: beforeUS-afterUS landmarks

Points =  
43.050327 -19.574389 28.646246 41.457959 -16.079460 31.171195 “”  
38.000286 -19.310701 35.832615 35.130024 -14.587492 37.726655 “”  
51.176403 -17.693413 24.917555 49.881248 -13.153977 28.732701 “”  
38.861774 -20.050928 25.793882 37.478477 -16.680896 28.096297 “”  
50.099995 -26.474323 29.119776 47.648433 -20.993724 32.975789 “”  
31.413071 -26.502275 36.817249 29.273389 -23.599029 37.123024 “”  
43.039112 -25.471384 33.563751 41.368420 -18.605544 35.046250 “”  
40.093475 -18.521191 32.495602 37.222461 -13.863806 35.037693 “”  
53.474316 -16.070513 21.060978 53.456625 -11.780752 24.582612 “”  
49.392509 -21.698021 23.596071 46.805256 -18.661988 28.095797 “”  
52.977638 -44.353401 36.864697 49.909545 -38.577435 39.135014 “”  
47.454781 -24.305759 35.963745 43.864646 -20.316818 39.355339 “”  
40.226463 -15.148485 31.796501 37.364169 -10.662443 33.880712 “”;

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**Author:** ![pieper](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/pieper/32/8_2.png) [@pieper](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/pieper)\
**Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 7:15pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/reading-mni-tag-point-file-in-slicer/9488/2 "2019-12-13T19:15:36Z")

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I don’t know of any, but it looks pretty straightforward (better if you also have a screenshot or similar way of knowing that you get the coordinate system assumptions correct - do you have that?)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tina\_Kapur](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/tina_kapur/32/3140_2.png) [@Tina\_Kapur](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/Tina_Kapur)\
**Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 9:56pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/reading-mni-tag-point-file-in-slicer/9488/3 "2019-12-13T21:56:37Z")

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We manually put the coordinates into an fcsv file and the fiducials show up in sensible places (relative to the underlying ultrasound) so I think that the coordinate system assumptions are correct.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![pieper](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/pieper/32/8_2.png) [@pieper](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/pieper)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2019, 2:46pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/reading-mni-tag-point-file-in-slicer/9488/4 "2019-12-14T14:46:39Z")

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I guess this is the format spec:

[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MINC/SoftwareDevelopment/Tag\_file\_format\_reference](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MINC/SoftwareDevelopment/Tag_file_format_reference)

To be honest it doesn’t look like a great format, but if you need to read a bunch of files it should be simple to write a little python script to read them or even register “.tag” to load them automatically.