[Neuroimaging] [Nibabel] Intent to deprecate int64 NIfTI images

[Christopher Markiewicz]

Hi all,

I want to bring everyone's attention to this issue: https://github.com/nipy/nibabel/issues/1089

I will reproduce the reasoning here, but the issue includes the specific changes to the API and accompanying warnings:

> 64 bit integer images are easy to generate in nibabel due to numpy semantics, but almost universally incompatible with non-Python tools. We must balance breaking existing Python scripts, the Python library ecosystem, and the wider neuroimaging ecosystem that uses NIfTI as an interchange format. Recognizing that we are currently contributing to breakage in the wider ecosystem, we have decided to deprecate 64-bit integer image creation except via explicit override.

There will be a series of PRs, probably in the first half of March to implement these changes. A couple have already started.

Please let us know what we can do to help make the transition as smooth as possible for any downstream libraries and ultimately, users.

Happy to discuss the decision further, but please also see the discussion that led to this decision: https://github.com/nipy/nibabel/issues/1046

Best,
-- 
Christopher J. Markiewicz, PhD
Center for Reproducible Neuroscience
Stanford University