Does NIfTI-1 support a single file format for header and data?
(Bob Cox) Yes. In this format, the 348 byte header comes first in the file. The image data follows. The image data offset in the file is specified by the vox_offset field in the header. Note that the magic field for a single file is “n+1”, whereas that for a double file is “ni1”. This means that it is the contents of the header that determines if the data is stored in the same file as the header or a different file. The filename itself (*.hdr or *.nii) does not necessarily specify the double or single storage format. In principle, one could put arbitrary information between the header and the image data, by making vox_offset be larger than 352. This is not recommended. Such a file would not be compatible or portable, which is the entire point of the NIfTI-1 effort. However: also see Q21! We recommend the use of the suffix .nii for a single header+data NIfTI-1 format file. This suffix does not have any previous meaning attached, unlike the more obvious .nif (Navy Image File). For more i
