3.3.1. Build dependencies#

This setup lists third-party software packages and libraries that are required if you want to build itom from sources. If you run a setup-release of itom none of these dependencies (besides a python 3 installation) are required. Most of the following hints address the build on a Windows operating system. However the required packages are mainly the same for Linux and most components can directly be obtained by the specific package manager of your Linux distribution.

3.3.1.1. Software packages#

Required Software-Packages

  • IDE (e.g. Visual Studio 2022 Professional, QtCreator…)

  • Compiler: The C++ compiler must support at least the C++11 standard.

  • CMake (recommended 3.12 or higher)

  • Qt5-framework or Qt6-framework (>= 5.5 required, >= 5.6 recommended)

  • OpenCV 3.2 or higher (4.x recommended)

  • Python 3.5 or higher, 3.7 or higher recommended

  • Git (git-scm.com) + GUI (e.g. TortoiseGit or GitExtensions) for accessing the remote repository

  • Python-Package: Numpy (up to itom 4.3.0, Numpy < 2.0 is supported only, Numpy 2.0 support will be added afterwards)

Optional Software-Packages

  • PointCloudLibrary 1.6 or higher (>= 1.9 recommended, optional)

  • Qt-AddOn for Visual Studio (requires .NET 2.0 framework with SP 1.0)

  • Doxygen (for creating the source code documentation)

  • Python-Packages: Scipy, Sphinx + numpydoc + breathe (user documentation generation), scikit-image, matplotlib…

3.3.1.2. Detailed information#

3.3.1.2.1. Compiler, IDE (mandatory)#

You can use any compiler and integrated development environment (IDE) which is supported by CMake (https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/manual/cmake-generators.7.html). On Windows systems, we develop with Visual Studio 2015+ Professional, whereas we use QtCreator for the development under Linux. QtCreator is no specific CMake generator, however QtCreator directly supports CMakeLists.txt-files. It is also possible to use the free express edition of Visual Studio.

Note

Please consider that you need to install the Service Pack 1 if you want to use Visual Studio 2015 Professional to compile a 64bit version of itom. It is even recommended to install the service pack for a 32bit compilation.

Note

The C++ compiler must support at least the C++11 standard.

3.3.1.2.2. CMake (mandatory)#

Download CMake from http://www.cmake.org/cmake/resources/software.html and install it. Or just download it and use that. no need to install. If possible use any version higher than 3.12. CMake reads the platform-independent project files of itom (CMakeList.txt) and generates the corresponding project files for your compiler, IDE and platform.

3.3.1.2.3. Qt-framework (mandatory)#

Download the Qt5-framework or Qt6-framework (>= 5.5 required, >= 5.6 recommended) from http://qt-project.org/downloads. If you find a setup version for your IDE and compiler, you can directly install it. Otherwise, you need to configure and build Qt on your computer - see box below. Either download the ready-to-use binaries from qt-project.org, compile it from sources and follow the instruction in the box below or consider to use the all-in-one-development setup). If you use the ready-to-use binaries, make sure to use a version with OpenGL.

Create the following environment variables (Windows only - you need to log-off from your computer in order to activate changes to environment variables):

  • create an entry QTDIR and set it to the Qt-base directory (e.g. C:\Qt\5.12.0)

  • Create an entry QMAKESPEC in System Environment Variables and set it to the

    string win32-msvc2010. For MSVC 2017 or newer QMAKESPEC must be set to win32-msvc.

  • add the following text to the Path variable: ;%QTDIR%\bin

    (please only add this string, do not replace the existing path-entry)

Note

Compiling Qt 5.x (using the example 64bit, Visual Studio 2015)

This side-note explains how to configure and build Qt5 for a 64bit build using Visual Studio 2010. The general approach for other configurations is similar.

  • Download the Qt5 sources a zip or tar.gz archive from qt-project.org and unpack them (e.g. to C:Qt5.6.0)

  • Make sure that Python 3.x is installed and verify that the path, containing

    the application python.exe is contained in the Windows environment variable.

  • Open Visual Studio Commandline x64 Win64 (2010) (64bit) or

    Visual Studio Commandline (2010) (32bit) e.g. via Windows >> Start >> Microsoft Visual Studio >> Visual Studio Tools.

  • Change to Qt-directory by typing:

    cd %QTDIR%

  • configure Qt by executing the command:

    configure -platform win32-msvc2010 -debug-and-release -opensource -nomake tests -nomake examples -qt-sql-odbc -qt-sql-sqlite -qt-zlib -qt-libpng -opengl desktop -skip qtwebkit -no-icu -no-openssl -skip qtscript -skip qtquick1

  • choose the option open source version and accept the license information.

  • now start the time-intense compilation process by executing:

    nmake

  • If ready type:

    nmake install
  • Finally, you can build the documentation (build into the qtbase/doc folder)

    by typing (see http://qt-project.org/wiki/Building_Qt_Documentation):

    nmake docs

If you want to restart the entire compilation you need to completely remove any possible older configuration. Then open the appropriate Visual Studio command line and execute:

nmake distclean

If Python could not be accessed, an error during the compilation may occur. Then make sure that Python is accessible via the Path environment variable and delete the possibly available file C:/Qt/Qt5.3.0/qtdeclarative/src/qml/RegExpJitTables.h.

Install Qt

3.3.1.2.4. Qt-Visual Studio-AddIn (optional, only for Visual Studio, not necessary for QtCreator)#

If you want to have a better integration of Qt into Visual Studio (e.g. better debugging information for Qt-types like lists or vectors), you should download the Qt-Visual Studio-AddIn (1.2.x for Qt 5.x,) from http://qt-project.org/downloads#qt-other or via visual studio gallery and install it. Since we are using CMake it is not mandatory to use this AddIn like it is usually the case when developing any Qt-project with Visual Studio. Therefore it is also possible to use the Express edition of Visual Studio, where you cannot install this add-in. The Qt Visual Studio AddIn requires that you have the .NET framework 2.0 SP 1 installed on your PC.

Note

Sometimes, there are problems when starting Visual Studio with an installed Qt-AddIn. In case that any component cannot be registered, as warned by a message-box when starting Visual Studio, you should check the bug and its fix described at https://bugreports.qt-project.org/browse/QTVSADDINBUG-77. In most cases it was sufficient to register the library stdole.dll using the tool gacutil.exe from the * Microsoft SDKs/Windows/v7.0A/bin* subfolder of your standard program folder. Start a windows commandline and move to the directory on your computer where the executable program gacutil.exe is located, then type:

gacutil.exe -i "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\MSEnv\PublicAssemblies\stdole.dll"

Note

Visual Studio Community Edition

You can also use the Community Editions of Visual Studio (e.g. Visual Studo 2015 Community Editions) to compile itom.

3.3.1.2.7. VTK (optional, better know what you’re doing…)#

Compile VTK 9

3.3.1.2.9. NumPy (mandatory)#

Get a version of NumPy that fits to your python version and install it. On Windows, binaries for many python packages can be found under http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/. But you can also find them more easily on pypi and you can then install them using pip directly.

3.3.1.2.10. pip (optional)#

Pip is the new package installation tool for Python packages. If you don’t have pip already installed (already included in Python >= 3.4) use the following hints to get pip. Download the file from https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py and save it to any temporary directory. Then open the file get-pip.py with the python version used for compiling itom (e.g. python32.exe). As an alternative, open a command line and switch to the directory where you save the file get-pip.py.

Assuming that Python is located under C:\Python32, execute the following command:

C:\\python32\\python.exe get-pip.py

pip is installed and you can use the pip tool (see Sphinx installation above).

3.3.1.2.11. Sphinx (optional)#

The Python package Sphinx is used for generating the user documentation of itom. You can also download sphinx from http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/. However, sphinx is dependent on other packages, such that it is worth to install Sphinx using the Python tool pip (If you don’t have pip see the next section). Then open a command-line (cmd.exe) and switch to the directory [YourPythonPath]/Scripts. Type the following command in order to download sphinx including dependencies from the internet and install it:

pip install sphinx

For upgrading sphinx, type:

pip install sphinx --upgrade

Next to Sphinx also install the numpydoc package if you want to build the user documentation.

3.3.1.2.12. jedi (optional)#

For auto completion, calltips, goto definition features etc. install the Python package jedi using pip:

pip install jedi

3.3.1.2.13. flake8 (optional)#

flake8 provides extended code checker functionalities, that is integrated into the GUI of itom. flake8 combines the code checker functionalities of the packages pyflakes, pycodestyle and mccabe. It can further be extended by other packages / plugins. Install flake8 via pip:

pip install flake8

3.3.1.2.14. pyflakes (optional)#

Instead of flake8, it is also possible to only install pyflakes for a reduced set of code checker functionality. If installed, your scripts are automatically checked for syntax errors that are marked as bug symbols in each line. The detailed messages are displayed as tool tip texts of the bug symbol. Use pip to install this package:

pip install pyflakes

3.3.1.2.15. Other python packages (optional)#

You can always check the website http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/ for appropriate binaries of your desired python package.

Note

If you use any python packages depending on NumPy (e.g. SciPy, scikit-image…) try to have corresponding versions. If your SciPy installation is younger than NumPy, some methods can not be executed and a python error message is raised, saying that you should update your NumPy installation.

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