vnl checked in

[Will Schroeder]

Hi Folks-

Bill Hoffman has checked in support for the numerics library. We have created a new directory Insight/Code/Insight3DParty with vxl (vision extreme library ?). In this directory you'll find several directories including:
* v3p (stands for "3rd party) - contains netlib numerical functions
* vcl - contains headers and functions for code portability
* vnl (numerics library) - basic numerical functions
* vnl/algo - a whole buch of useful algorithms like SVD, Levenberg-Marquardt, etc.

There are three MSVC workspaces in each of the directories v3p, vcl, vnl. The Testing/Code/Common/itkBasicArchitectureTest.cxx (and its associated workspace) has been modified  to use the libraries, so you can see how the include files, classes, templates, etc. are used.

I suggest that the algorithm folks start poking into the code to see how it feels and works. You'll note that the creators of this code are quite sophisticated with C++, and have taken great pains to make sure that the code is portable (something that we've decided not to do since we're relying on newer compilers)....anyway, there's a lot to learn in there.

At some point we'd like to add a filter into the pipeline that utilizes the vxl code, partially as a test, but also to see how it fits together. Does anyone have an idea for a simple filter that uses something like SVD (or similar)? And would someone like to volunteer to take a stab at it?

Will