new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/loadANTS.m
@@ -0,0 +1,66 @@
+%======================================================================
+%                    L O A D A N T S . M 
+%                    doc: Thu Jul 21 22:53:21 2011
+%                    dlm: Thu Jul 21 23:43:06 2011
+%                    (c) 2011 A.M. Thurnherr
+%                    uE-Info: 61 60 NIL 0 0 72 2 2 4 NIL ofnI
+%======================================================================
+
+% NOTES:
+%	- very restrictive subset of ANTS standard:
+%		= no empty lines
+%		- no in-record comments
+
+% HISTORY:
+%	Jul 21, 2011: - began working on it
+
+function dta_struct = loadANTS(file_name)
+
+fid = fopen(file_name);										% open file
+if fid < 0
+	error(ferror(fid));
+end
+
+dta_struct = struct([]);
+
+l = fgetl(fid);												% handle metadata
+while ischar(l) & regexp(l,'^#')
+	if regexp(l,'^#ANTS#ERROR#')
+		error(l);
+	elseif regexp(l,'^#ANTS#PARAMS#')
+		params = regexp(l,'(\w+){([^}]*)}','tokens');
+		for i=1:length(params)
+			if strcmp(params{i}{2},'')
+				dta_struct = rmfield(dta_struct,params{i}{1});
+			else
+				dta_struct = setfield(dta_struct,params{i}{1},params{i}{2});
+			end % if
+		end % for
+	elseif regexp(l,'^#ANTS#FIELDS#')
+		field = regexp(l,'{([^}]*)}','tokens');
+	end % elseif
+	l = fgetl(fid);
+end % while
+
+if ~ischar(l)												% EOF
+	close(fid);
+	return
+end
+
+fmt = '';													% construct scanf format
+for i=1:length(field)
+	fmt = [fmt ' %f'];
+end
+
+rec1 = sscanf(l,fmt);										% split first record
+dta = fscanf(fid,fmt);										% read & split remaining records
+
+for i=1:length(field)										% copy to structure
+	disp(field{i});
+	keyboard
+	dta_struct = setfield(dta_struct,field{i},[rec1(i); dta(:,i)]);
+end
+
+flose(fid);
+
+return