[Insight-users] Using ITK with visual studio and not cmake

[Mark Roden]

OK, I'll just make myself a header that has all those include
directories in it instead.

Basically, it seems that CMake is just enumerating all directories and
putting that enumeration into the build list.

See, I don't want to use that Visual Studio project, because it's
cluttered with all the libraries and so forth.  I don't want to
rebuild the libraries all the time, I just want them to exist and not
be touched.  I want to remove them as much as possible as a time sink
for a 'rebuild all' command, and I want to assume that they will Just
Work and so not be a potential source of problems.  Of course, that
last is probably a pipe dream, but at least it's open sourced so I can
step in if I need to.  I'd also want to have all those warnings on in
my project, because they've all caused me problems in the past.  I
also want to be able to lock down to a particular version of the
library, and then only upgrade as necessary.

So, I have my reasons.  If that means that I have a more complicated
project file, so be it.

Thanks for the help,
Mark

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 10:17 AM, Michael Jackson
<mike.jackson at bluequartz.net> wrote:
> Answers In line..
>
>
> On Oct 19, 2009, at 12:56 PM, Mark Roden wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 9:35 AM, John Drescher <drescherjm at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I want to incorporate more libraries than just itk in my project, and
>>>> am having a pretty hard time of it.
>>>>
>>> I can tell you as a 12 year windows programmer before ever using
>>> CMake, its much much easier to do this with cmake. And also cmake
>>> actually a lot of benefit to visual studio. Out of source builds,
>>> built in unit testing, built in install generator, ability to have one
>>> project file for all versions of visual studio VC6+... Eventually I
>>> will convert all my old projects to use cmake and drop the .vsproj and
>>> .dsp files out of my cvs repository...
>>
>> I have a similar level of experience here, and I'm just not that into
>> cmake.  I've learned quite a few tricks with sln files and the like,
>> and figuring out yet another set of build rules and yet another set of
>> unit testing paradigms and a different source control system (I use
>> either git or perforce, cvs just gives me hives) is a real distraction
>> from getting work done.
>
>  You don't need CVS for ITK. Get the regular released version from the web
> site.
>>
>> Let me put it this way: the CMake paradigm adopted by itk, that of
>> single files to accomplish a simple task, is fine for little command
>> line applications, but not how I want to build an application.  If I
>> wanted to incorporate other libraries (ie, QT for useful interfaces,
>> etc), trying to mesh these libraries with those will be most likely
>> excruciating.  That's why I'm looking for a simple build location,
>> with dlls, libs, and headers, not to incorporate with an entire coding
>> paradigm.
>>
> Actually incorporating other libraries with CMake and ITK is quite "easy"
> with CMake... but I'll leave that for another time..
>
>> Maybe I don't understand CMake.  Frankly, I really don't want to.  I
>> just want to use the libraries as libraries, not as a coding style or
>> as a way to organize files.
>
> See below..
>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I've built the libraries using the cmake options to build only
>>>> libraries.
>>>>
>>>> I then have a basic hello-world executable that links to the built
>>>> libraries and includes the itk/code/common directory.
>>>>
>>>> I then #include "itkImage.h" at the top of my main file, and have the
>>>> body of the main function matching the example from HelloWorld.cxx in
>>>> examples/installation
>>>>
>>>> When I try to build, I get this error:
>>>>
>>>> 1>c:\users\mark\src\itktests\itktestproject\itk
>>>> libraries\code\common\itkwin32header.h(23) : fatal error C1083: Cannot
>>>> open include file: 'itkConfigure.h': No such file or directory
>>>>
>>>> How do I fix this?  I can't find the itkConfigure.h file anywhere;
>>>> does cmake not make it automatically?
>>>>
>>> Yes, that should be inside the build tree. I have my ITK source at
>>>
>>> X:\CMakeBase\Libraries\ITK-3.16
>>>
>>> and the build tree at
>>>
>>> X:\32Bit\VC.80\Libraries\ITK-3.16
>>>
>>> and I can see a itkConfigure.h in that folder.
>>
>> I've found it, and now I get:
>>
>> 1>c:\users\mark\src\itktests\itktestproject\itk
>> libraries\code\common\itkmacro.h(42) : fatal error C1083: Cannot open
>> include file: 'vnl/vnl_math.h': No such file or directory
>>
>> vnl_math is not found in this directory structure.
>>
>> More to the point, I really have no desire to chase down ten thousand
>> header files to make this work; I strongly suspect that once the
>> vnl_math.h problem gets fixed, then there's five others waiting in the
>> wings.  It's not at all clear to me why it is necessary to include
>> math libraries just to create a blank 3D image, but setting aside my
>> own ignorance, is there an easy way to get what I want, ie, just
>> linking to some monolithic directory that has all the itk libraries?
>> If not, if I wrote such a thing, would it be considered at all useful
>> by anyone else, or just the intransigence of one guy going against the
>> CMake trend?
>>
>> And what about those warnings?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Mark
>
> I _know_ you know what I am about to say, but I'll run down what you are
> faced with.
>
> ITK uses the style of includes as "#include "itkImage.h" with out any
> indication of what subfolder itkImage.h resides in. This means that _every_
> subfolder in the ITK installation/source needs to be "included" in the
> compile command. This looks something like the following (on OS X).
>
> cd /Users/mjackson/Workspace/AIMBlades/Build/AIM/SymmetryFilter &&
> /usr/bin/c++   -DDEBUG -DQT_DLL -DQT_GUI_LIB -DQT_CORE_LIB -DQT_DEBUG
> -ftemplate-depth-50 -Wall -Wno-deprecated -no-cpp-precomp -msse2
> -fmessage-length=0 -g
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Review
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/gdcm/src
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/gdcm
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Utilities/vxl/core
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Utilities/vxl/vcl
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Utilities/vxl/v3p/netlib
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Utilities
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Utilities/itkExtHdrs
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Utilities/nifti/znzlib
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Utilities/nifti/niftilib
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Utilities/expat
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Utilities/DICOMParser
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Utilities/NrrdIO
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Utilities/MetaIO
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/SpatialObject
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Numerics/NeuralNetworks
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Numerics/FEM
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/IO
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Numerics
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Common
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/BasicFilters
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Algorithms
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit/Numerics/Statistics
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/include/InsightToolkit
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/tiff/include
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/boost-1_39/include/boost-1_39
> -I/Users/mjackson/Workspace/AIMBlades/Build
> -I/Users/mjackson/Workspace/AIMBlades/Source
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/Qt-4.5.3-UBFramework/include
> -I/Users/mjackson/Workspace/AIMBlades/Source/AIM/SymmetryFilter/optimized
> -F/Users/Shared/Toolkits/Qt-4.5.3-UBFramework/lib
> -I/Users/mjackson/Workspace/AIMBlades/Source/AIM/SymmetryFilter/debug
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/Qt-4.5.3-UBFramework/include/QtGui
> -I/Users/Shared/Toolkits/Qt-4.5.3-UBFramework/include/QtCore   -Wall -o
> CMakeFiles/FourFoldSymmetry.dir/main.cpp.o -c
> /Users/mjackson/Workspace/AIMBlades/Source/AIM/SymmetryFilter/main.cpp
>
> And then the link command looks something like this (OS X example)
>
> cd /Users/mjackson/Workspace/AIMBlades/Build/AIM/SymmetryFilter &&
> /Users/Shared/Toolkits/CMake-2.6.4/bin/cmake -E cmake_link_script
> CMakeFiles/FourFoldSymmetry.dir/link.txt --verbose=1
> /usr/bin/c++     -ftemplate-depth-50 -Wall -Wno-deprecated -no-cpp-precomp
> -msse2 -fmessage-length=0 -g -Wl,-search_paths_first
> -headerpad_max_install_names -fPIC
> CMakeFiles/FourFoldSymmetry.dir/main.cpp.o  -o
> ../../Bin/FourFoldSymmetry_debug
>  -F/Users/Shared/Toolkits/Qt-4.5.3-UBFramework/lib
> -L/Users/Shared/Toolkits/ITK-3.14.0_Rel/lib/InsightToolkit
> -L/Users/Shared/Toolkits/boost-1_39/lib ../../Bin/libMXALib_debug.a
> ../../Bin/libFourFoldSymmetryLib_debug.a
> /Users/Shared/Toolkits/boost-1_39/lib/libboost_program_options-xgcc42-mt-d-1_39.a
> ../../Bin/libMXALib_debug.a
> /Users/Shared/Toolkits/tiff/lib/libtiff_debug.dylib -framework QtGui
> -framework Carbon -framework AppKit -framework QtCore /usr/lib/libz.dylib
> -framework ApplicationServices -lITKAlgorithms -lITKNumerics -lITKStatistics
> -litkNetlibSlatec -lITKFEM -lITKBasicFilters -lITKIO -lITKNrrdIO -litkgdcm
> -litkjpeg12 -litkjpeg16 -litkopenjpeg -framework System -litkpng -litktiff
> -litkjpeg8 -lITKSpatialObject -lITKCommon -litkvnl_inst -litkvnl_algo
> -litkv3p_netlib -litkvnl -litkvcl -lm -lpthread -lITKMetaIO -litksys
> -lITKDICOMParser -lITKEXPAT -lITKniftiio -lITKznz -litkzlib -lm
>
>
> So if you go _without_ CMake you will need to incorporate _all_ of those
> includes and libraries into your own VS project.
>
> If you _do_ use CMake then all of that is done for you when cmake generates
> the Visual Studio project. Your Choice. And there is no "right" answer. You
> need to do what works for you.
>
> Hope some of that helped.
> _________________________________________________________
> Mike Jackson                  mike.jackson at bluequartz.net
> BlueQuartz Software                    www.bluequartz.net
> Principal Software Engineer                  Dayton, Ohio
>
>