Slicer / ITK / VTK Development Tools

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Slicer / ITK / VTK Development Tools

• Steve Pieper, PhD

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Overall Goals

• Understanding the Big Picture
• Code browsing with ctags
• Source Navigator
• Debugging
• tkcon
• Using the native debuggers
• itkFilterWatcher

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Ctags

• Exuberant CTAGS
• Ctags.sf.net
• This version comes with cygwin and most linux
  distributions
• Provides detailed tag files for emacs and vi
• Run in top level directory with
• ctags R .

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Using the tags file from vim

• Put cursor on identifier of interest
• Type Control- to jump to the tag
• If there is more than one tag for this
  identifier, type tselect and select desired tag
  from list
• Type Control-t to jump back to original spot
• You can nest tags on a stack to trace through a
  control flow

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Source Navigator

• http//sourcenav.sourceforge.net/
• Linux source code to compile
• Windows binaries

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Source Navigator

• Multi-directory class browser (see whole project)
• Hierarchy Display
• View all code
• Jump to definitions and declarations
• See comments and code
• Grep UI

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Native Tools

• CMake creates makefiles and .SLN files that can
  be used outside of CMake for debugging
• Resolve linker or option issues
• Can attach to running process with gdb or visual
  studio
• Debug the C code

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Visual Studio Slicer Debugging

• Start Slicer
• Tools-gtDebug Processes
• Attach to wish84.exe, Slicer 2.4
• Run program until it crashes
• Browse to Source directory and set breakpoints

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gdb Debugging

• Start slicer (built in debug mode)
• Use ps to find process id of parent vtk thread
• Use gdb command attach ltpidgt
• For debugging startup
• slicer2-linux-x86 Base/tcl/tkcon.tcl
• Attach gdb
• In tkcon
• source Base/tcl/Go.tcl

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Tkcon

• Very smart console written in Tk
• Identifier completion
• Files
• Variables
• Class instances
• UI Windows
• Command line editing like readline
• Create VTK class instances and experiment
• Write and test tcl code interactively

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Interactive VTK Commands

• ltinstancegt ListMethods
• Tells all instances currently known to the
  interpreter
• ltinstancegt Print
• Calls the PrintSelf method
• ltinstancegt ListMethods
• Tell what methods are available in the interpreter

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itkFilterWatcher

• Uses itk Observer mechanism to register callbacks
  for common events
• StartEvent
• ProgressEvent
• EndEvent
• Prints total running time

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Worlds oldest debugging tool

• Print statements in the code!
• Just remember to disable them when you are done
  debugging
• In C
• vtkDebugMacro()
• Call GlobalWarningDisplayOn method for any
  instance of a vtkObject subclass
• In Tcl
• if Module(verbose) 1
• puts "INIT mInit"
• Use the -verbose option in slicer to set the
  Module(verbose) flag

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Resources

• www.slicer.org
• www.na-mic.org/Wiki
• www.na-mic.org/Bug
• www.na-mic.org/Testing
• slicer-devel_at_bwh.harvard.edu
• slicer-users_at_bwh.harvard.edu