ITK/Release 4/Refactor Numerical Libraries

Background

ITK largely relies on third party libraries to provide support for numerical computations such as linear solvers, eigen analysis and non-linear optimization. These libraries have been integrated over the years of the project, based on content from other libraries, immediate needs and requirements of particular projects.

Goal

• The purpose of this project is to revise the numerical libraries currently used in ITK, and to determine whether they are the best (or a good enough) option to use, and whether they are being used properly in the toolkit.
  • When appropriate, some of these libraries will be replaced with better options.
  • When possible, the code will be restructured to make possible for users to pick other options of third party libraries that may provide better support for their particular applications.

Inventory

• First, we proceed to make an inventory of the numerical libraries currently used in ITK. This will serve as basis for the analysis of whether there are better options to use, and/or whether they are being used correctly.

Inventory of Numerical Libraries

Alternatives

• Replace f2c reference BLAS with the CBLAS, the C interface to BLAS linking against an externally supplied BLAS.
• Replace f2c LAPACK with LAPAACKE, the C interface to LAPACK linking against an externally supplied LAPACK.

Tcons

• 2011 08 24