SimpleITK/GettingStarted/Visual guide to building on Linux

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:

• Ubuntu
• Linux Mint

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

• Ubuntu
  • Ubuntu Installation guide
  • Learn How to Install Ubuntu Linux in 5 Minutes (youtube)
  • The Ubuntu Installation Guide (with pictures)
• Mint
  • Linux Mint User Guide (English)
  • Install Linux Mint on your Windows computer (howtogeek)
  • How to Install Linux Mint (youtube)

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

• VirtualBox
• VMWare

Again, there are heaps of tutorials:

• Installing Ubuntu inside Windows using VirtualBox
• How to Install Ubuntu on VirtualBox
• Install Linux Mint 12 in VirutalBox
• How to Install Linux Mint in Virtualbox (youtube)

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 gcc g++ git giggle python 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
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 over 2 hours.