OrientationD transform should behave the same when metadata is not tracked in MetaTensor, but in metadata dict

[kretes]

Describe the bug
OrientationD transform behaves differently when metadata is not tracked in MetaTensor, but in metadata dict

To Reproduce
Prerequisite:

from monai.data import set_track_meta
from monai.transforms import (
    Compose,
    LoadImaged,    
    Orientationd,    
    EnsureChannelFirstd,    
)
record = {"image": "<path_to_some_nifti_scan>" }

inference_transform = Compose(
        [
            LoadImaged(keys="image"),
            EnsureChannelFirstd(keys="image"),
            Orientationd(keys="image", axcodes="RAS"),
        ]
    )

Those two snippets give different results:

set_track_meta(False)

img = inference_transform(record)

first_patch_input = img["image"][..., :96, :96, :96]

out_mean = first_patch_input.mean().item()
out_max = first_patch_input.max().item()
out_min = first_patch_input.min().item()
out_above = (first_patch_input > 0).sum().item()
print("meta=False first_patch_input", first_patch_input.shape, out_mean, out_max, out_min, out_above)

set_track_meta(True)

img = inference_transform(record)

first_patch_input = img["image"][..., :96, :96, :96]

out_mean = first_patch_input.mean().item()
out_max = first_patch_input.max().item()
out_min = first_patch_input.min().item()
out_above = (first_patch_input > 0).sum().item()
print("meta=True first_patch_input", first_patch_input.shape, out_mean, out_max, out_min, out_above)

In my example file:
meta=False first_patch_input torch.Size([1, 96, 96, 96]) -2800.24267578125 258.0 -3024.0 14933
vs
meta=True first_patch_input torch.Size([1, 96, 96, 96]) -2810.35107421875 317.0 -3024.0 4097

If I remove Orientationd from the list of transforms - the output is the same.

Expected behavior
OrientationD should give the same result both for MetaTensor and for dict with metadata.
Or, at least - should fail explicitly when it can't do it's job.

E.g. EnsureChannelFirstd would fail in the case no tracking metadata and when image_only=True.

set_track_meta(False)
LoadImaged(keys="image", image_only=True)
# EnsureChannelFirstd fails

Environment

================================
Printing MONAI config...
================================
MONAI version: 1.2.0
Numpy version: 1.24.3
Pytorch version: 2.0.1
MONAI flags: HAS_EXT = False, USE_COMPILED = False, USE_META_DICT = False
MONAI rev id: c33f1ba588ee00229a309000e888f9817b4f1934
MONAI __file__: /***/lib/python3.11/site-packages/monai/__init__.py

Optional dependencies:
Pytorch Ignite version: NOT INSTALLED or UNKNOWN VERSION.
ITK version: NOT INSTALLED or UNKNOWN VERSION.
Nibabel version: 5.1.0
scikit-image version: 0.20.0
Pillow version: 9.4.0
Tensorboard version: 2.13.0
gdown version: NOT INSTALLED or UNKNOWN VERSION.
TorchVision version: 0.15.2
tqdm version: 4.65.0
lmdb version: NOT INSTALLED or UNKNOWN VERSION.
psutil version: 5.9.5
pandas version: 2.0.2
einops version: 0.6.1
transformers version: NOT INSTALLED or UNKNOWN VERSION.
mlflow version: NOT INSTALLED or UNKNOWN VERSION.
pynrrd version: 1.0.0

For details about installing the optional dependencies, please visit:
    https://docs.monai.io/en/latest/installation.html#installing-the-recommended-dependencies


================================
Printing system config...
================================
System: Linux
Linux version: Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS
Platform: Linux-5.4.0-159-generic-x86_64-with-glibc2.31
Processor: x86_64
Machine: x86_64
Python version: 3.11.3
Process name: python3.11
***
Num physical CPUs: 48
Num logical CPUs: 48
Num usable CPUs: 8
CPU usage (%): [0.2, 0.3, 0.2, 0.2, 0.3, 0.2, 2.1, 1.2, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.2, 0.2, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1]
CPU freq. (MHz): 1525
Load avg. in last 1, 5, 15 mins (%): [2.0, 2.9, 1.4]
Disk usage (%): 76.2
Avg. sensor temp. (Celsius): UNKNOWN for given OS
Total physical memory (GB): 1007.8
Available memory (GB): 984.7
Used memory (GB): 16.3

================================
Printing GPU config...
================================
Num GPUs: 0
Has CUDA: False
cuDNN enabled: True
cuDNN version: 8700

[wyli]

that's expected because Orientationd requires the meta info from LoadImaged to determine the original orientation. set_track_meta(False) will remove the info and use a default meta dict. (converting this into a discussion for now)

[kretes]

Ok,
There is a warning about that. maybe I overlooked it.

And I can see that from monai 1.3 even the 'ensurechannelsfirst' will stop working in the way that it's either MetaTensor or a tensor + dict. (I just saw 7dfa0b9 where this functionality was removed).

So - there is just no sensible scenario to use set_track_meta(False)