If you would like to be notified about new updates, please send request to ifrit.bugs@gmail.com. License terms:
IFrIT is distributed under the terms of GNU Public License (GPL). If you use the GUI shell with IFrIT, the specific version of the GPL license is inherited from the GPL version of Qt; if you do not use GUI, then version 2 is in effect. By downloading IFrIT you are agreeing to abide by the terms of GPL.
Download IFrIT
Source code:
Public extensions:
The VTK and GADGET extensions also serve as a tutorial
on how to write IFrIT extensions if you want to teach IFrIT to read
your favorite data format. I release both these extensions as
beta-versions, since I do not have access to many data files in these
formats. The released extensions do read all files supplied with VTK
and GADGET distributions.
- Multi-View Extension
for using multiple monitor setups (Wall- and Cave-like, planetarium
domes, dual monitors, etc). Since these set-ups are not that common,
this extension is not compiled in by default, you will need to run
CMake interactively (using cmake -i or ccmake) to
include it. Many set-ups are still missing, but they are very easy to
add, so if you need something, drop me a line. I will also add a
user-programmable one soon.
Private extensions (limited access):
Install Other Packages
Before you can compile IFrIT, you need to install other packages that IFrIT uses: - Required for the windows installer: I updated my developer environment for Visual Studio 2008, and old PCs will not be able to run the new executable without additional libraries. To install these libraries, download and run vcredist_x86.exe. You only need to do it once, all other updates will re-use it. You can also download it directly from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9B2DA534-3E03-4391-8A4D-074B9F2BC1BF&displaylang=en). If you use the installer, you do not need any other packages listed below.
- Required for compiling the source: Kitware VTK
(Visualization Toolkit for 3D visualizations, public domain). IFrIT has
been ported to VTK version 4.4 to VTK 5.4. Version 5 adds nice
capabilities for creating movies directly into MPEG (use VTK 5.0.2 or
later for this capability, but watch for license issues) or AVI files,
and for using 3D textures for volume rendering (these features may not
work on all platforms) - so, I recommend that you upgrade to VTK 5.
There is a bug in VTK 5.4 that affects performance, so I recommend using VTK 5.2 for now. Currently, I support IFrIT with both versions of VTK but support for
VTK 4 will disappear at some point in the future. Do not download later
versions (so-called Nightly releases), they might not compile or
function properly. (Download VTK 5.2.0 source.)
Installation Notes:
- VTK 4 must be compiled with Hybrid classes (set VTK_USE_HYBRID to ON when configuring VTK with cmake). In VTK 5 Hybrid classes are included automatically.
- If you would like to use parallel capabilities in IFrIT, compile VTK with Parallel classes (set VTK_USE_PARALLEL to ON when configuring VTK with cmake). Without VTK Parallel classes, IFrIT can only use a single processor.
- On a 64-bit platform the advanced option VTK_USE_64BIT_IDS can be activated to allow access to more than 2GB of memory.This is automatic in VTK 5.2 and later.
- MacOS: users may try to include X11 classes in the VTK installations (VTK option VTK_USE_X)
if they have problems with the VTK installation. If you compile VTK
with shared libraries, make sure to add the VTK library directoriy
($VTKDIR/bin) to the environment variable DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH prior to installing VTK. Otherwise, you will get errors of libraries not being found.
- Cygwin: make sure to set VTK_USE_X during VTK installation, otherwise cmake will create a Windows VTK version.
- Optional: Trolltech Qt
(a multi-platform GUI library, open source). IFrIT has been ported to
Qt versions from 3.0.4 to 4.3.0 (later versions will most likely work too, but I haven't cheched them yet). At the moment I recommend using Qt 3,
since Qt 4 does not add any new capabilities that I use and is somewhat
slower than version 3; it is also less savvy in using the screen space.
The only reason to use Qt 4 is because it is free on Windows, while Qt
3 is not (I also provide the Windows installer, so Windows users do not
even have to worry about installing Qt or VTK).
(Download Qt 3.3.0 source - Mac users should get a free Mac version of Qt, do not use the X11 version.) If you use KDE on Linux, then you already have Qt installed, but you may need to ask your sysadmin to install a developer package, with include files and moc executable.
Important: Qt is needed for GUI support. Without Qt, only the command-line version of IFrIT will be available.
Installation Notes:
- MacOS: If you compile Qt with shared libraries (default
option), make sure to add the Qt library directory ($QTDIR/lib) to the
environment variable DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH prior to installing Qt. Otherwise, you will get errors of libraries not being found.
Compile IFrIT
To compile IFrIT, follow the steps:
- Untar IFrIT source file; it creates a ifrit-NNN directory (where
NNN is the version of IFrIT). If you would like to install extensions,
untar them inside the ifrit-NNN directory.
- Set the environment variables VTKDIR to point to the VTK root directory. If you use Qt, the environment variable QTDIR
should also be defined (it is defined automatically, if Qt is installed
correctly), and Qt bin directory ($QTDIR/bin) should be in your path.
- Switch to ifrit-NNN/build directory (where NNN is the version of IFrIT).
- Use CMake to configure IFrIT - since you installed VTK, you
should have a working version of CMake too. The simplest way to
configure IFrIT is to run non-interactive CMake:
% cmake .
If you would like to use CMake options to disable some of the
components or need more control over the build process (if, for
example, some of the standard libraries are not in standard places),
you can run CMake interactively:
% cmake -i .
(in the command-line mode) or
% ccmake .
for the GUI mode (ccmake is called CMakeSetup.exe
under Windows). In most cases configuring in GUI mode reduces to
pressing "c" a few times, and then pressing "g". If CMake complains
about VTK changing compiler switches, accept the VTK choice. If
completed successfully, CMake will create a Makefile in the current
directory. You will need to use the interactive mode if you would like
to add the Multi-View extension, it is off by default.
- Compile IFrIT by executing
% make
(or gmake).
It will take some time to compile. The executable is called "ifrit" and
is located in the main source directory (one level above build).
Move it into your personal bin directory. The executable is
self-containing, it does not need any other files to run (but you can
use external files to modify IFrIT behavior).
Installation Notes:
- On UNIX platforms a command-line shell needs curses library.
This library is usually installed, but if it is missing, compile IFrIT
without the command-line shell (CMake will tell you if this is indeed
the case).
- For Windows, I provide a self-extracting installer. It works for Windows XP on a 32-bit Intel processor. I have not tested it for other versions of Windows. It needs VC++ run-time DLLs that are installed with vcredist_x86.exe, as explained above.
Enjoy! Do not forget to glance through the User Guide!
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