ITK-SNAP Launcher — VS Code Extension

Adds an "Open in ITK-SNAP" context menu item to .itksnap workspace files and medical image files in the VS Code Explorer, covering the formats ITK-SNAP itself supports: NIfTI (.nii, .nii.gz, .nia, .nia.gz), MetaImage (.mha, .mhd), NRRD (.nrrd, .nhdr), GIPL (.gipl, .gipl.gz), MINC (.mnc), VoxBo CUB (.cub, .cub.gz), VTK Image (.vtk, .vti), single DICOM images (.dcm), Siemens Vision (.ima), and GE (.ge4, .ge5). Works for both local files and files on Remote SSH servers.

** THIS EXTENSION REQUIRES ITK-SNAP 4.6 OR LATER **

How it works

Right-clicking a supported file and choosing Open in ITK-SNAP constructs an itksnap-sftp://hostname/path URL and hands it to the local machine via vscode.env.openExternal. On Windows and MacOS the itksnap-sftp:// scheme routes to ITK-SNAP, which loads the file over SSH.

For local files the plain file:// URI is passed directly, opening via the normal .itksnap / .nii file-type association.

.itksnap workspace files open in VS Code's normal XML text editor (they are plain XML). An Open in ITK-SNAP button (external-link icon) appears in the editor title bar whenever a .itksnap file is the active editor, so you don't have to switch back to the Explorer to launch it.

Opening a supported medical image file directly in the editor area (double-click, not right-click) shows a simple preview pane with the filename and an Open in ITK-SNAP button, instead of VS Code's "file is not displayed" binary placeholder. It does not read or parse the image data.

Note: If you have another medical-image-viewer extension installed, VS Code will prompt you once to pick a default editor for a given extension (e.g. *.nii.gz). You can change this choice later via Reopen Editor With... from the editor tab context menu, or by editing the workbench.editorAssociations setting.

Note that .hdr, .img, and .raw (Analyze / raw binary formats) are intentionally left out of both the context menu and the editor preview, since those extensions are also used outside of medical imaging.

Prerequisites

• ITK-SNAP 4.6 or later installed. The itksnap-sftp:// URL scheme is registered automatically the first time ITK-SNAP is launched.
• An SSH host alias in ~/.ssh/config that matches the VS Code Remote SSH connection name.

Installation

Install once on your local machine — no installation needed on the remote server.

cd /path/to/vscode_ext
npx @vscode/vsce package --no-dependencies   # produces itksnap-launcher-x.x.x.vsix
code --install-extension itksnap-launcher-*.vsix

Or install directly from the VS Code Marketplace by searching for ITK-SNAP Launcher.