Projects:ARRA:SlicerUI

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Aim

The effective visualization, data processing, analysis and interaction of medical images and ancillary data is a complex process requiring sophisticated and efficient software tools. Further, the development of new tools requires a productive and widely supported software environment. In such an environment, the human-computer interface plays a critical role in the overall effectiveness of the software tools. To this end, the Slicer graphical user interface (GUI) is to be significantly enhanced by the adoption of the standard and widely used Qt GUI toolkit. Qt has recently changed its licensing terms, meaning that it is now compatible with Slicer's commitment to open systems. Further, Qt is now recognized as the defacto standard, cross-platform GUI toolkit, offering superior performance, capability and productivity.

Research Plan

Slicer currently has an extensive GUI that consists of three major, logical parts: 1) the core, 2) command-line modules, and 3) modules. The research plan recognizes this organization, and will address the GUI development accordingly.

• The first step is to replace the core GUI with Qt. This will demand some initial design and planning, including integration of various Qt tools such as Qt Designer.
• Second, the command-line modules automatically generate their GUI from an XML description of the module. This will require modification so that Qt GUIs are generated (instead of the current KWWidgets).
• Finally, select, critical modules such as EM Segmenter will be reworked to use Qt widgets.
• Most of this work will occur in the first year, with completion of the critical modules expected early in the first quarter of the second year.
• After this, the research plan switches to training and dissemination of Qt-related technology so that the broader Slicer community can participate in the transition of modules to the Qt GUI.
• The key to this plan is to switch the core and command-line modules as fast as possible since we want to minimize disruption to the Slicer community, and to support continued Slicer development.

Key Personnel

• William Schroeder, Ph.D., 8%, 9/17/2009 - 9/16/2011
• Stephen Aylward, Ph.D., 5%
• Jean-Christophe FILLION-ROBIN, 50%
• Julien Finet, 50%
• Sebastien Barre, Ph.D., 5%

Meetings

• Regular meeting TCons every Tuesday at 2:00pm

Progress

• Feb 10, 2010
  • Integration of Qt designer into Slicer: the qt application to design module UIs (designer) can now be launch through Slicer: "Slicer3 --launch designer"
  • Arguments/Settings: qCTKSettings can store application settings, added classes to parse the application command line arguments: qVTKCommandOptions, qSlicerCoreCommandOptions, qSlicerCommandOptions
  • Some module logics have been separated from the KWWidgets modules to be reused by Qt modules: ModelMirror, AtlasCreator, MRAblation, FetchMI...
  • Widgets:
    • ported more features from the KWWidgets : qMRMLNodeSelector (support multi node types, attributes, ...),
    • tuned behavior of some widgets, i.e. qCTKSliderSpinBoxWidget:size synchronization of the spinboxes, text right aligned ...
  • Testing: qCTKAddRemoveComboBox, qCTKTestApplication, qVTKObject...
• Feb 03, 2010
  • Style: QCleanLooksStyle has been choosen to be the default Slicer style
  • The module logics in KWWidgets modules can now be reused in Qt modules
  • New widgets: qCTKMenuButton, qMRMLSceneFactoryWidget (for testing MRML widgets in Designer)
  • New module ported to Qt: Tractography
• Jan 27, 2010
  • Command line modules: finalizing the integration with Slicer.
  • Render Widget: Preliminary work has been started (qVTKRenderView)
  • New widgets: qMRMLEventLoggerWidget logs all the events generated by a vtkMRMLScene (for debugging only).
  • Design improvement: Using feedbacks from slicer developers, we applied changes to correct heavy/unfriendly designs.
  • Testing: Added qCTKModelTester, a QT object that can test the correctness of any class deriving from QAbstractItemModel.
• Jan 20, 2010
  • New widget: a generic framework for handling MRML objects in list/table/tree widgets has been developped( drag/drop supported, reparenting, scene observers...)
  • Quality: compilation warnings have been removed.
  • Testing: a skeleton for unit test has been written for each classes
• Jan 13, 2010
  • Outcome of the NAMIC All Hands meeting
    • 2 new tutorials: Port of Slicer to Qt, First steps with Qt
    • Slicer with Qt has been successfully compiled on several machines under Linux, Windows and Mac. The building instructions have been updated.
    • A few dashboards have been setup to compile with Qt. We count on you to submit more dashboards.
    • More unit tests have been written
    • 2 new modules have been created with Qt
    • A lot of installation bugs/problems have been resolved
• Jan 07, 2010
  • Setup dashboards in Qt (Nightly, Continuous and Experimental builds)
  • More unary tests added
  • NAMIC All Hands meeting
    • Presentation of Port of Slicer to Qt to the Slicer community
    • Workshop provided to help slicer developers to setup a Slicer environment running with Qt.
    • First modules developed by the community
• Dec 30, 2009
  • Added support for modules with no corresponding KWWidgets modules: New modules in QT only can now be created.
  • Bug fixes on Windows.
• Dec 22, 2009
  • Added tests
  • Tree widgets: WIP
  • Command Line modules: WIP
• Dec 16, 2009
  • Modules can now be ported into Qt by the Slicer community. Presentation: Port of Slicer to Qt
• Dec 9, 2009
  • New widgets: qMRMLItemModel, qMRMLListWidget, qMRMLTreeWidget
  • Screen-casts: videos made for RSNA
  • More work on the CLI modules, Slicer Qt only, now compiles on MAC OS X,
• Dec 2, 2009
  • Command Line modules integration: First results (UI only)
  • Interface between MRML Scene and the Qt (tree, list, table...) widgets: WIP
• Nov 25, 2009
  • New Module: Welcome Module
  • New tutorial: Using Qt Designer with CTK & MRML widgets
  • Command Line modules integration: WIP.
• Nov 18, 2009
  • New widgets: Tree Combo Box, Node Tree Selector
  • New feature: Support for help: example of an help section automatically added into a module
  • Command Line modules integration: WIP.
• Nov 13, 2009
  • rework on the Transforms Module
  • started to work on the Command Line modules integration.
• Nov 6, 2009
  • Loadable Modules are now supported.
  • Added Cameras Module
• Oct 30, 2009
  • The entire Qt-Slicer code architecture has been reviewed, factorized and simplified. Coding rules have been chosen (not documented yet).
  • Documentation: Added a tutorial to write custom widgets
• Oct 23, 2009
  • New widgets: Collapsible widget, Color Picker button
• Oct 16, 2009
  • Synchronization between Qt widgets and KWWidget. Move the qt panels when the application is moved on the desktop.
  • New widgets: Coordinates widget, Collapsible groupbox
• Oct 9, 2009
  • TCon with Julien Finet (J2), Jean-Christophe (JC), Steve, Will, Seb, Stephen, Wendy, Nicole to discuss progress
  • Demonstrated new software architecture that simplifies building new modules
  • Addressed issues of background color, etc previously raised by Dr. Kikinis QtTransformModule-v2.png
  • New widgets: Matrix Widget, Transform Sliders
• Oct 2, 2009
  • TCon with JC, Steve, Will, Seb, Stephen, Wendy, Nicole
  • Demonstrated initial software architecture
  • Uploaded screenshot of first module and received feedback from Dr. Kikinis QtTransformModule.png
  • Designed basic widgets: Linear Transform Slider, Node Selector
• Sept 25, 2009
  • One day meeting with CTK community September 25, 2009
• Sept 22, 20009
  • TCon with JC, Will, Sebastien, Steve
  • Added Qt dual-slider into Slicer
• September 16-17, 2009
  • Two-day planning meeting

Links

• QtSlicer Wiki
• Preliminary work