Documentation/4.0/Developers/Build Instructions
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The goal of the Super-Build is to provide a cross-platform build system that allows developers to quickly install and configure the multiple packages.
Where Slicer3's build system relied on a custom build script called getbuildtest, new features added to CMake, partly driven by slicer's requirements, allow porting of the scripts to rely more on native CMake functionality with the benefit that build script is more modular and general purpose.
Contents
STEP 0: Prerequisites
Please check that the following tools are installed on your machine.
- Debian Squeeze user type:
sudo apt-get install gcc libX11-dev libXt-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libosmesa6-dev libglu1-mesa-dev git cmake cmake-curses-gui libqt4-dev subversion make g++
- Ubuntu users, just type the following line in a terminal
sudo apt-get install gcc libX11-dev libXt-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libosmesa6-dev libglu1-mesa-dev git cmake cmake-curses-gui
- CentOS user type:
yum install gcc-c++ libX11-devel libXt-devel make
- Mac
- git version >= 1.6.5
- CMake version >= 2.8.2
- Linux prerequisites (need to confirm)
- An easy way to get all of the packages needed to build Slicer is to install all of the packages needed to build paraview (another vtk-based program)
- sudo apt-get install aptitude
- sudo aptitude build-dep paraview
- gcc
- gcc-c++
- libX11
- libX11-devel (libX11-dev on Ubuntu 7.04)
- libXt-devel (libXt-dev on Ubuntu)
- opengl/mesa (libgl1-mesa-dev on Ubuntu) (and libosmesa6-dev on Ubuntu)
- glu (libglu1-mesa-dev on Ubuntu)
- git version >= 1.6.5
- Download Git
- install git:
sudo apt-get install git
. Ifgit --version
is inferior to 1.6.5, then:sudo dpkg --install git-core_1.6.5-1~bpo50+1_amd64.deb
- CMake version >= 2.8.2
- An easy way to get all of the packages needed to build Slicer is to install all of the packages needed to build paraview (another vtk-based program)
- Windows prerequisites
- IDE:
- Prefered: Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 or 2010 (including Express Edition)
- Cygwin suite
- CMake version >= 2.8.2
- SVN (e.g. SlikSvn)
- CVS
- git version >= 1.6.5. msysgit is recommended. Using TortoiseGit is a plus.
- IDE:
- All Platforms: Qt. Use one of the links provided in the table below to download the source code or binary of Qt. If required, you can download the source code and compile Qt using the instructions in Slicer4: Build Instructions for Qt.
Linux | Mac | Windows | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tiger | Leopard, SnowLeopard | |||||
32bits | 64bits | 32bits | 64bits | 32bits | 64bits | |
Qt source link | 4.6.3 | 4.6.3 (vs2008) 4.7.3 (vs2010) | ||||
Qt binary link | x86_2010.05 | x86_64_2010.05 | carbon_4.7.0 | cocoa_4.7.0 | 4.6.3 (vs2008) 4.7.3 (vs2010) |
- |
Step1: Checkout slicer source files using subversion
For example:
cd MyProjects svn co http://svn.slicer.org/Slicer4/trunk Slicer4
Step2: Configure and generate Slicer solution files
You can configure and generate Slicer solution files using either ccmake or cmake-gui.
- cmake-gui (Recommended): Configure using default options.
- If you downloaded the Qt binary then qmake will be detected and all paths will be set automatically.
- If you built your own Qt (e.g. in Debug mode for use with the designer) set the QT_QMAKE_EXECUTABLE in cmake-gui.QT_QMAKE_EXECUTABLE should be set to the path of the qmake.exe file, which is inside the bin directory (for example, ./QT/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.7.3/bin/qmake.exe).
- ccmake (for linux/mac): Configure using the following commands. For developers, set the CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE to Debug.
mkdir Slicer4-SuperBuild cd Slicer4-SuperBuild ccmake ../Slicer4
- If you build your own Qt, then the ccmake command in the sequence above should also specify the path to that Qt installation. For example,
ccmake -DQT_QMAKE_EXECUTABLE:FILEPATH=<path_to_my_installation_of_qt>/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.7.3/bin/qmake ../Slicer4
Two projects are generated by ccmake/cmake-gui. One of them is in the top-level bin directory Slicer4-Superbuild and the other one is in the subdirectory Slicer4-Superbuild/Slicer-build:
- The first project in Slicer4-Superbuild manages all the external dependencies of Slicer (VTK, ITK, Python, ...). To build Slicer for the first time, run make (or build the solution file in Visual Studio) in Slicer4-Superbuild, which will update and build the external libraries and if successful will then build the subproject Slicer-build.
- The second project in Slicer4-Superbuild/Slicer-build is the "traditional" build directory of Slicer. After local changes in Slicer (or after an svn update on the source directory of Slicer), only running make (or building the solution file in Visual Studio) in Slicer4-Superuild/Slicer-build is necessary (the external libraries are considered built and up to date).
Warning:
- For Windows users:Windows doesn't support path longer than 260 characters, please make sure that the total path name of your Slicer-build directory is no longer than 50 characters ( for example "c:\work\Slicer\Slicer-Superbuild" (32 characters) is fine)
- Warning: a lot of space disk is necessary to compile Slicer in Debug (>10GB on Windows)
Step3: Build Slicer4
After configuration, start the build process in the Slicer4-SuperBuild directory
- Linux / Mac: Run the following code:
make -j<NUMBEROFCORES>
- Windows: Open Slicer4-SuperBuild\Slicer.sln (or Slicer-4.0\Slicer4-SuperBuild\Slicer-build\Slicer.sln) in Visual Studio and build the ALL_BUILD project.
Warning:
- As it is indicated in Step2, if you make local changes in Slicer4, run make (or build the solution file in Visual Studio) in the directory Slicer4-Superuild/Slicer-build.
- If you would like to make local changes and debug your code in Debug mode in Visual Studio, use the Visual Studio Command Prompt to open the solution file in Slicer4-Superuild/Slicer-build:
- Open Visual Studio Command Prompt
- Go to the directory Slicer4-Superuild/Slicer-build
- Write Slicer.exe --VisualStudio Slicer.sln
Step4: Run Slicer4
Run the launcher in Slicer4-SuperBuild/Slicer-build/Slicer (Slicer.exe on windows)
Platform Notes
- Linux Ubuntu: if you have odd rendering artifacts, try disabling visual effects (System/Appearance/Visual Effects)
- Windows: If build was OK, but it Slicer doesn't start (gives the error: [bin/Release/SlicerQT-real.exe] exit abnormally - Report the problem.) then one possible root cause is that you have a copy of Python26.dll in your windows system directory (e.g., c:\Windows\System32\python26.dll). The solution is to rename or remove the python dll in the system directory. See more details here: http://www.na-mic.org/Bug/view.php?id=1180