describe(1)

📦
version 3.3.1p2 · 7 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

✨ describe(1) ✨

okay bestie, so this is a page from the The Computational Morphometry Toolkit manual — the describe(1) one — and it's genuinely one of the cutest little tools in the whole CMTK lineup. no cap. let's get into it 💖

💅 NAME

describe — spill the tea on image and transformation file formats and parameters

🌸 SYNOPSIS

describe [options] file0 [file1 ...]

🦋 DESCRIPTION

bestie. this tool literally just describes things. you hand it some input files and it prints a detailed description of them — either as image(s) or as transformation(s). that's the whole vibe. it's giving "tell me everything about this file" and describe is like "say less 💅"

✨ OPTIONS ✨

🌈 Global Toolkit Options (these are shared by all CMTK tools)

so these bad boys? every single CMTK tool has them. they're like the group chat that everyone's in.

  • --help — writes the list of basic command line options to standard output. your little starting point 🫶
  • --help-all — writes the complete list of basic and advanced command line options to standard output. for when you want the whole lore 🔥
  • --wiki — writes the list of command line options to standard output in MediaWiki markup. wiki girlies rise 👑
  • --man — writes man page source in 'nroff' markup to standard output. yes, the tool can write its own man page, main character energy fr fr
  • --version — writes toolkit version to standard output. who am i? 💖
  • --echo — writes the current command line to standard output. it repeats what you said back to you, iconic behaviour honestly
  • --verbose-level <integer> — set verbosity level. dial the chatter up or down 🌸
  • --verbose, -v — increment verbosity level by 1 (deprecated; supported for backward compatibility). still works, still slays, but she's deprecated bestie 😭
  • --threads <integer> — set maximum number of parallel threads (for POSIX threads and OpenMP). multitasking queen 🧚

💜 Main Options

the actual star of the show:

  • --machine-readable, -m — print output in format that is easy to parse automatically. for when a robot is reading instead of you 🤖✨
  • --read-ras — read all images in RAS orientation. orientation check, vibe check, same thing 💅

🎀 AUTHORS

Torsten Rohlfing, with contributions from Michael P. Hasak, Greg Jefferis, Calvin R. Maurer, Daniel B. Russakoff, and Yaroslav Halchenko

(we stan a whole squad of contributors, honestly 🫶)

📜 LICENSE

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html

💀 BUGS

found a bug? don't suffer in silence bestie, report bugs at http://nitrc.org/projects/cmtk/ — they want to know, fr fr 🙈

🌟 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CMTK is developed with support from the NIAAA under Grant AA021697, National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (N-CANDA): Data Integration Component. From April 2009 through September 2011, CMTK development and maintenance was supported by the NIBIB under Grant EB008381.

the way that funding made this whole thing possible… iconic 🤍

and that's the whole page, bestie! go describe some files 💖

and one last lil sign-off from the footer: this is CMTK 3.3.1p2, dated Jun 24 2026, and it's the describe(1) page 🎀✨

📦 where this page comes from