[Insight-users] RegionGrowingSegmentation individual application not included in the built InsightApplications

[Luis Ibanez]

Hi Sara,


              This is actually a sad story...


    One that illustrates, once again, how the obsessive use of
    Patents *obstructs* the progress of Science and the Useful Arts.



Here it goes:

    In order to use the RegionGrowingSegmentation application,
    from InsightApplications, you must first reconfigure ITK
    and turn ON in CMake the flag ITK_USE_PATENTED.


The reason:

    When we developed this applications several years ago, we
    wanted to make it as a comparative tool for running variations
    of very similar segmentation methods.

    In particular, it included several methods, such as

           * ConfidenceConnected
           * ConnectedThreshold ...and
           * SimplyFuzzyConnectedness


As the development of ITK continued, we learned that the Fuzzy
Connectedness method was *infected* with the burden of a Patent
held by the University of Pennsylvania and that therefore it
should be moved to a separate directory (Insight/Code/Patented)
and be used conditionally under the control of a CMake flag, to
prevent it from contaminating the rest of the ITK Toolkit.


In this way, the responsibility for "using" this method is placed
on the users, and it is up to them to seek permission with the
University of Pennsylvania to be allowed to use this method.


Of course, "ITK_USE_PATENTED" is set to OFF by default in ITK,
and therefore, the RegionGrowingSegmentation application is
not built by default.

The result is that users get surprised by not finding this
application in the default build, and have to go through the
annoyance of this extra configuration.


Please turn ON the flag ITK_USE_PATENTED in your ITK build,
and then reconfigure InsightApplications.

Please note the if you plan to run the Fuzzy Connectedness
method, you MUST first seek permission from the University
of Pennsylvania.  Note as well, that you can still run all
the other region growing methods in this application without
being subject to that restriction.


Please note as well, that research is not excluded from the
restrictions of patents, and that even if you are performing
research at an academic institution you are still subject to
the limitations of a patent. That is, you *can not* use patented
methods without first receiving a license from the patent holder.



What we should do at some point is to get rid of this method,
and any other method that is covered by patents...


Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns,


     Thanks


        Luis



=========================
sara meghellati wrote:
> Dear Luis and itk experts,
> I have been trying to build InsightApplications-3.8.0 on a Windows 
> machine with VC++ and getting following problem: 
> RegionGrowingSegmentation individual application is not included in the 
> built InsightApplications! I have installed FLTK version 
> fltk-1.3.x-r6162 and VTK version 5.0.4. in the processes of building 
> InsightApplications, I have passed CMake to "Advanced mode" and enable 
> USE_FLTK and USE_VTK. When I enable USE_FLTK, all the applications based 
> on FLTK appear as a field in the cache value of the Cmake but 
> RegionGrowingSegmentation doesn’t appear! Did this application need 
> other toolkit in addition to FLTK and VTK ? Pardon me if my question 
> sounds stupid but please could anyone give me some help with this?
> other applcation work fine as SNAP,Fastmarching, levelset....
> Best regards
> Sara
> 
> 
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