Hi all,

I am trying to have subject-specific brain surfaces. I have rh.pial and lh.pial files in the freesurfer folder specified to the subjects. I was wondering if I need to convert these files into the required *.nv text file? Or does the software process the pial files and there is no need to convert them to txt file for loading the brain surface? 

Thanks,
Afarin

Hi Afarin, 

BrainNet Viewer can directly load the lh.pial or rh.pial, however, each of the files only contain the brain surface of one hemisphere. In order to draw the whole brain surface, please convert and combine the two pial files into one nv file using the merge mesh tool in the menu bar. 

Best,
Mingrui

Hi Mingrui,

Thanks for your response. In order to merge the pial files of the two hemispheres from Merge Mesh tool in the menu bar, we need to load three files: 1) Left (lh.pial), 2) Right (rh.pial), and 3) New (.nv file). The pial files are provided in the surf folder of freesurfer. How about the New nv file?
Should I load the left and right pial files on one of template nv files that came with BrainNet Viewer package, e.g. ICBM152? Or do I just need to make an empty text file with extension .nv and load the pial files into it? Or do I somehow need to make this ASCII text *.nv file? (with vertex number, vertex coordinates, triangle faces number and index of vertex making up the triangles fields)

Thank you,
Afarin

Hi Afarin,

There is no need to load the third file. Just input a filename. 

Best,
Mingrui