NITRC-CE comes preconfigured with some common imaging software, but in order to use these tools, we need some data.

This video will show you two ways to get data into your computation environment.


This demonstration assumes you are already in NITRC-CE. 

If you need help getting to this point, watch our companion videos on “Launching a NITRC-CE Instance” and “Starting a VNC session.”


One way to get data onto NITRC-CE is to download data from NITRC-IR, the image repository.

If you move or minimize the terminal window, you will see a “NITRC-IR” desktop icon.

Double clicking this icon will start a Firefox web browser pointed at NITRC-IR.

If you are running a small instance, this may take a while, so please be patient.


Now, that we’re in NITRC-IR, let’s grab an image.

Click on one of the projects, like CANDI Share: Schizophrenia Bulletin.

Click on a subject in this project. I’m just randomly selecting the first one.

Click on "MR Session" to get the MR images for this subject.

Select "Download" in the Actions box, and then "Download Images."

On the pop-up screen, change the selections if you like, and when you are ready, click the "Download" button.

Select "Save File" and click “OK.”

The file is saved to the Downloads directory in your computational environment.


Go back to your terminal window, and go to the Downloads directory.

You can see that the zip file containing our MR session image is now in our Downloads directory.

You can unzip this file and use the tools on NITRC-CE to view or analyze the image.

And, that’s an example of getting data from NITRC-IR.



Another way to get data onto NITRC-CE is to transfer data from your own computer using SCP or SFTP.


In this example, I have a similar NITRC-IR ZIP file on my local computer.

You may use SCP or SFTP from the command prompt if your operating system supports that, 

or you may use you favorite file transfer software. 


I’m going to demonstrate with Firezilla.

The Host is the public DNS for your NITRC-CE instance; it’s the URL that starts with “ec2” and ends with “amazonaws.com.”

The protocol is SFTP.

Login Type is “normal” and the User and Password are what you supplied when you configured your VNC session to access NITRC-CE.

Click the “Connect” button.

Find the file on your local computer and transfer it to the Downloads folder on NITRC-CE.


When the transfer is complete, go back to your VNC terminal and your Downloads directory, and look its contents.

You should see your zipped data file.

Now, you can unzip it and use it for data processing with NITRC-CE.


Any questions, contact nitrcinfo@nitrc.org.