3dTshift infers the slice direction from the z direction (k dimension) of the storage orientation. With the exception of the voxshift option, these z slices are used for the relative timing offsets with the various timing patterns like alt+z, alt-z, seq+z, .... You can find the dataset orientation with "3dinfo -orient mydset". The last dimension of the 3-letter code determines the slice direction and order (top to bottom vs bottom to top, left to right vs right to left). So an orientation of
RAI implies
Inferior to superior axial slices. An orientation of
PIR implies left to right sagittal slices.