Installation of VTK and ITK on Mac OS X#

VTK library is used for 3D computer graphics, image processing and visualization (http://www.vtk.org/) and ITK library contains powerful image processing and registration tools (http://www.itk.org/). ITK doesn’t provide any classes for visualization. A wrapper between ITK and VTK is used for that :ITKVTKGlue. Thus, it’s necessary to install VTK before ITK.

This installation guide is inspired from different sources on the web and provide a good installation in local on our computer (Mac OS 10.8). It probably won’t work for all OS versions.

Other documentation :
http://www.macresearch.org/installing_vtk_on_mac_os_x
http://www.vtk.org/Wiki/Cocoa_VTK
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17329258/how-to-install-vtk-6-1-for-osx-10-8-with-cocoa-xcode-support
http://itkdebug.blogspot.ca/2013/02/install-itk-on-mac-os.html\

This installation uses CMake to build VTK and ITK, which is available on http://www.cmake.org/cmake/resources/software.html.

Install VTK#

1. Download VTK sources (the latest release) on VTK website (http://www.vtk.org/VTK/resources/software.html) and unpack for example on Desktop

2. In the VTK folder, create a new folder named “VTKBuild” (or anything else). Open a terminal in VTKBuild folder and open CMake Gui with the command :

ccmake ..

If you have the message EMPTY_CACHE, then press “c” to configure.

3. Numerous options are available and you need to change some of these ones :

BUILD_DOCUMENTATION=OFF # (if ON, need Doxygen)
BUILD_EXAMPLES=OFF
BUILD_TESTING=OFF
BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON # (ON to compile dynamically, OFF to compile statically)
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local/vtk
    # Probably the most important option to change. It is where the library
    # will be installed. In this case, it's in local but you can provide another
    # folder. Installing ITK and VTK in the same folder is also important.
    # This way will put all library files (.dylib) in the same folder and it's
    # easier to link with your project.
CMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=x86_64
    # Some authors suggest changing this feature. You can add architecture like
    # i386 or pcc
CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.8
CMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=/Applications/XCode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.8.sdk
    # This path is required to link Xcode with VTK. If you don't have XCode
    # installed the path will be different.
VTK_Group_Qt=OFF # (building doesn't work with Qt...)
VTK_Group_Rendering=ON
VTK_Group_StandAlone=ON
VTK_USE_64BITS_IDS=ON

4. Press “c” to configure and “g” to generate VTK. Once generated, you can build VTK using commands :

cmake ..  # (maybe redundant)
make -j 4
    # The option -j allows you to build libraries using multiple cores and
    # accelerate the process (which may be very long!)

5. At this point, library is build in the folder “VTKBuild” and you have to install it in the local folder using command :

sudo make install # (sudo is needed because installation is made in local)

Install ITK#

1. Download ITK sources named “InsightToolkit-x.x.x.tar.gz” (the latest official release) on ITK website (http://www.itk.org/ITK/resources/software.html) and unpack for example on Desktop

2. In the ITK folder, create a new folder named “ITKBuild” (or anything else). Open a terminal in ITKBuild folder and open CMake gui with the command :

ccmake ..

3. Numerous options are available and you need to change some of these ones :

BUILD_DOCUMENTATION=OFF # (if ON, need Doxygen)
BUILD_EXAMPLES=OFF
BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON # (ON to compile dynamically, OFF to compile statically)
BUILD_TESTING=OFF
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local/itk
    # Probably the most important option to change. It is where the library
    # will be installed. In this case, it's in local but you can provide another
    # folder. Installing ITK and VTK in the same folder is also important.
    # This way will put all library files (.dylib) in the same folder and it's
    # easier to link with your project.
CMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=x86_64
    # Some authors suggest changing this feature. You can add architecture
    # like i386 or pcc
CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.8
CMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=/Applications/XCode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.8.sdk
    # This path is required to link Xcode with VTK. If you don't have Xcode
    # installed the path will be different.
ITK_BUILD_ALL_MODULES=ON
ITK_USE_64BITS_IDS=ON
Module_ITKV3Compatibility=ON
    # used if you want to use classes people have built from different
    # versions (e.g., v3)
Module_ITKVtkGlue=ON # (probably not necessary if ITK_BUILD_ALL_MODULES is ON)
VTK_DIR=/usr/local/vtk/lib/cmake/vtk-6.0
    # path may change depending on VTK version and folder installation

4. Press “c” to configure and “g” to generate ITK. Once generated, you can build ITK using commands :

cmake .. # (maybe redundant)
make -j 4

5. Installation of ITK in the same local folder :

sudo make install

Installing VTK/ITK on Mac OSX 10.9#

Since Apple completely changed the way the compiler are installed, using VTK/ITK on recent version of Mac OSX was quite difficult… Hereafter is a quick tutorial from (http://avansp.github.io/build/2014/10/30/building-ITK-4.7-on-macosx-10.9.5/) to install VTK/ITK on Mac OSX to avoid annoying error to appear during compilation. Do the same follow procedure for VTK and ITK.

Example: Building ITK 4.6.1 on Mac OSX 10.9.5#

Date: October 2014

System Info:

OSX: 10.9.5
XCode: SDK 10.9 (have 10.10, but my OS is still 9)
CMAKE: 3.1.0-rc1
ITK: 4.7

From a fresh start, meaning new directory to build. Run CMAKE and generate. You can use any generator, but I chose CodeBlocks - Unix Makefile, because Qt can read CMake project structure if we use CodeBlocks generator.

Set the correct C & C++ compiler (I don’t want to mix up with GNU):

CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER = /usr/bin/clang++
CMAKE_C_COMPILER = /usr/bin/clang

Set the correct compiler flags:

CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS = -stdlib=libstdc++ -std=c++11
CMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT = /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.9.sdk
CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET = 10.9
CMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES = x86_64

Other settings are:

CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX: Make sure it does not install directly to /usr/local/ folder by default.

If this still doesn’t work, you may need to until I hack directly into the CMakeCache.txt file.

It appears that even though I told CMake that I used LLVM’s clang compiler (Apple changed that since 10.9 from GNU), CMake still uses <type_traits> inclusion instead of <tr1/type_traits>.

I forced CMake, by changing these lines in the CMakeCache.txt file manually:

//Have include tr1/type_traits
ITK_HAS_STLTR1_TR1_TYPE_TRAITS:INTERNAL=
//Have include type_traits
ITK_HAS_STLTR1_TYPE_TRAITS:INTERNAL=1

into:

//Have include tr1/type_traits
ITK_HAS_STLTR1_TR1_TYPE_TRAITS:INTERNAL=1
//Have include type_traits
ITK_HAS_STLTR1_TYPE_TRAITS:INTERNAL=

It seems to work… still compiling. No complaints about type traits.

Fixing Installation Issues#

Warning

garbage collection is no longer supported

You can simply remove the -fobjc-gc flag from VTK_REQUIRED_OBJCXX_FLAGS

Warning

traits error

Add libc++.dylib to your project:

Select your project (the blue file) in your project navigator (Command 1 if it’s hidden)

Select your target

Go to Build Phases

Expand “Link Binary with Libraries”

Click the “+”

Type libc++.dylib in the search bar

Select the libc++.dylib file and click “Add”

Be prepared to use libraries#

At this point, ITK and VTK are correctly installed your /usr/local folder. Installation have created four folder :

?tk/bin ⇒ binaries of ITK and VTK
?tk/lib ⇒ libraries (.dylib) of ITK and VTK
?tk/include ⇒ include files of libraries (header files)
?tk/share ⇒ contain documentation, license and so on.

ITK and VTK may now be used in Xcode. Documentation for creating a new project linked to ITK and VTK on Xcode is located here : Create a new Xcode project linked with ITK and VTK

To use executable linked with ITK or VTK you need to set your environment variables. Edit your .bash_profile and add:

export PATH=/usr/local/itk/bin:$PATH
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/ITKVTK/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH

Installation of VTK and ITK on Mac OS X

Page Contents

Installation of VTK and ITK on Mac OS X#

Install VTK#

Install ITK#

Installing VTK/ITK on Mac OSX 10.9#

Example: Building ITK 4.6.1 on Mac OSX 10.9.5#

Fixing Installation Issues#

Be prepared to use libraries#