SimpleITK/GettingStarted/Visual guide to building on Linux

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This guide gives detailed instructions for building SimpleITK on Linux. It is written for beginners getting started with SimpleITK.

Why Linux?

  • Linux is freely available
  • It has all the required tools
  • Did I mention it's free?

Step 1: Get Linux

The first step is to install a Linux distribution. Some popular ones are:

There are many online tutorials explaining how to install your chosen Linux distribution:

If you are a Windows user, you may consider running Linux on a virtual machine. Some popular virtual machine environments are:

Again, there are heaps of tutorials:

This guide uses Linux Mint 12, but the steps are very similar for other Linux distributions.

Step 2: Install build tools

Install the build tools by opening the terminal

The next step is to install the required build tools.

In the terminal, use apt-get to install the build tools

Open a terminal window (Menu > Terminal) and run the following command: 

sudo apt-get install cmake cmake-curses-gui gcc g++ git giggle python python2.7-dev ipython monodevelop

Confirm that you want to install the packages (press "y"), then wait for the installation to complete.

Build tools could also be installed using the software manager

Alternatively, you could manually select each software package from the Software Manager (Menu > Software Manager).

Step 3: Get SimpleITK source code

The next step is to get the SimpleITK source code using git.

Decide where you want to put the source code. I'm putting mine in home/ITK: 

cd ~
mkdir ITK
cd ITK
Create a directory to place the source code using the Terminal or the file manager

Of course you can do this visually via the file manager (Menu > Files).

Get the SimpleITK source code using git

Now download the SimpleITK source code, by entering the following command in the Terminal: 

git clone --recursive  http://itk.org/SimpleITK.git

Now change to the SimpleITK directory: 

cd SimpleITK

Step 4: Build SimpleITK

The next step is to start building.

The recommended way to build is via the so-called "super build": 

mkdir Build
cd Build
sudo cmake ../SuperBuild

If you prefer not to build with elevated privileges (i.e. omit sudo) you can firstly install Python distribute: 

sudo apt-get install curl
curl -O http://python-distribute.org/distribute_setup.py
sudo python distribute_setup.py

and then simply execute CMake: 

cmake ../SuperBuild

The SuperBuild generates make files which takes care of downloading and building ITK, SWIG, and Lua, as well as SimpleITK. On my system, by default, wrappers were generated for C# and Lua.

To start the (long) build process, type: 

make

On my laptop (Acer Aspire 5755G, Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz × 8, 2GB RAM) the build took about 4 hours.

After the build is finished, you need to add SimpleITK to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH: 

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:~/ITK/SimpleITK/Build/lib

You can now optionally check to see if the build worked: 

cd SimpleITK-build
ctest

All (or at least most) of the tests should pass.

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