[Freesurfer] Freesurfer labels vertices and not faces?

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Hi,

I've more of a general question. It seems to me that, if I use mris_convert (to convert to ascii) to take a closer look at, for example, rh.pial.asc, and an annot2label, there are exactly enough rows to label each vertex of each triangle, but not enough label rows to color each face (defined by 3 vertex indices). I don't really understand how one can "color" a vertex. As an aside, when defining a patch in, say, MATLAB, one defines the color of each row in 'Faces'. Could someone help me understand what exactly is going on here? As one can imagine it's bizarrely and frustratingly difficult to search for this question/answer on Google or the Freesurfer listserv.

Thanks! Daniel