The Installation Instructions

Introduction

The instructions are for if you have downloaded a binary package.

Each NifTK binary package installs a suite of software, and extra steps are needed to setup your system after the installer runs. These steps are important. Without these steps you will have either fewer programs available, or programs that do not run correctly. Please see the instructions below.

Mac OSX

1. Download a .dmg file, and double click to "mount" it.
2. You will see two folder. One named /Applications and one named niftk-16.4.1. Drag and drop the niftk-16.4.1 folder onto the Applications folder.
3. The software will install into /Applications/niftk-16.4.1
4. In Finder, you will see for example an icon for NiftyView.app and possibly other icons for other graphical user interfaces. Each of these icons represents a bundle containing the main interface eg. NiftyView, and also command line programs and scripts.
5. In your shell startup script ~/.bash_profile put for example

   export PATH=/Applications/niftk-16.4.1/NiftyView.app/Contents/MacOS:$PATH
   

   and similarly for other bundles.
6. Don't forget that when the version number changes, you have to change the PATH for the new version.

Linux

1. Download the .tar.bz2 file, into the directory you want to install into. For these instructions we will call this <INSTALL_DIR>, which should be substituted below for your installation dir.
2. Extract the tar file using:

   tar xvjf niftk-16.4.1.tar.bz2
   

3. If you are running a bash shell put:

   export NIFTK_DIR=<INSTALL_DIR>/niftk-16.4.1
   source ${NIFTK_DIR}/bin/SetupNifTK.sh
   

   in your ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile
4. Or if you are running a csh put:

   setenv NIFTK_DIR <INSTALL_DIR>/niftk-16.4.1
   source ${NIFTK_DIR}/bin/SetupNifTK.csh
   

   in your ~/.cshrc

Note: Depending on your Linux system administrator, your shell startup scripts could be different ones, managed by your system administrator. If in doubt ask your local admin. For example at UCL Computer Science most managed machines use a csh and the file to edit is ~/.uclcs-csh-options.

Windows

1. Download the .exe file
2. Run the .exe file following the on-screen prompts.
3. The software will install into "C:\Program Files\NifTK 16.4.1".
4. A desktop short-cut will enable you to run NiftyView and other graphical user interfaces.
5. Command line programs will be in "C:\Program Files\NifTK 16.4.1\bin".
6. Scripts will not be available.
7. If you want command line programs to be available from the command prompt, you must set your user or system PATH environment variable manually to "C:\Program Files\NifTK 16.4.1\bin".

the NiftyView application

Once correctly installed, NiftyView can be run as follows:

1. On Linux, you should run NiftyView.sh, which should be available if you set the PATH variable correctly above.
2. On Windows, you can launch NiftyView from the Start menu then niftk-16.4.1 then NiftyView, or from the Desktop icon if you selected that option, and also from the command line if you chose to add it to the system or user PATH.
3. On a Mac, you can find the NiftyView icon in the /Applications/niftk-16.4.1 and drag it to the dock (which creates an alias), or create an alias to /Applications/niftk-16.4.1/NiftyView.app on your Desktop and run that. On the command line you can run "open /Applications/niftk-16.4.1/NiftyView.app" or if you set your PATH in ~/.bash_profile you can just run "NiftyView."

and similarly for other graphical user interfaces.