The MITK Project Template

A ready-to-build project that shows how to extend the MITK Workbench with your own C++ code: custom data types, image processing, interactions, tools, views, and applications.

Why this template?

MITK is a toolkit. When you want to add your own functionality to the MITK Workbench, you do not fork MITK. Instead you write modules (C++ libraries), plugins (Workbench UI), command-line apps, and, if needed, pull in your own external projects. This template is a working project made of exactly those pieces, wired into the MITK build so you can start from something that already compiles and runs.

Every example is small and heavily commented. Read the code alongside the Documentation, which explains what each example teaches and why.

If you only want to call MITK's algorithms from Python rather than extend the Workbench, look at the mitk-python package instead. This template is for building C++ modules and plugins.

What's inside

• Example module (Modules/ExampleModule)
  • A custom data type (ExampleDataStructure) with its own file reader and writer (auto-loaded IO) and 2D/3D rendering (custom mappers)
  • An ITK-based image filter (ExampleImageFilter)
  • A data interactor that paints into images (ExampleImageInteractor)
  • A segmentation tool (ExampleSegTool2D) for the Segmentation views
  • Unit tests (test/)
• Example command-line app (Modules/ExampleModule/cmdapps, ExampleCmdApp)
• Example plugins
  • A Workbench view (Plugins/org.mitk.gui.qt.exampleplugin)
  • An eager-activation plugin (Plugins/org.mitk.exampleplugin.eageractivation)
• Example standalone application (Applications/ExampleApp, MitkExampleApp)
• Example external project (Microsoft's GSL) and external-project customization (extra ITK modules)

Quick start

You do not build this template on its own. You point the MITK superbuild at it with the MITK_EXTENSION_DIRS cache variable, and it is built as if it were part of MITK.

1. Get MITK and this template (for example via "Use this template" on GitHub, or by cloning), checking out matching release tags of both.

2. Configure the MITK superbuild with MITK_EXTENSION_DIRS set to this working copy, then build. On Windows:

   cmake -S MITK -B MITK-superbuild -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" ^
     -D MITK_EXTENSION_DIRS=C:/path/to/MITK-ProjectTemplate
   cmake --build MITK-superbuild --config Release

3. Launch the MITK Workbench from the inner build tree and open the Example View (category "Examples").

See Documentation/01-getting-started.md for prerequisites, Linux/macOS commands, running the tests, and launching the applications.

Documentation

• Getting started: build, run, and test.
• A tour of the examples: what each example teaches and where to look.
• Make it your own: turn the template into your own project.

Requirements and supported platforms match MITK itself; see the MITK documentation.

License

Copyright (c) German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
All rights reserved.

The MITK-ProjectTemplate is part of MITK and is available as free open-source software under a 3-clause BSD license.