XRaySim - Documentation

Documentation

Package documentation:

User Manual (PDF) - A quick introduction to the XRaySim package. This document will help you get up and running within minutes and also walk you through getting your first scan out of XRaySim. Some of the advanced features are left out for brevity's sake. The basic interface is explained, along with a simple example.

Material script essentials (PDF) - This document lays down the fundamentals of the material scripting language and describes how the system can be extended for use with custom materials. The scripting system uses the fantastic Boost.Spirit parser framework.

Pre-compiled binaries:

Currently, pre-compiled binaries are provided for Microsoft Windows only. They have been tested on Vista (32-bit) and XP (32-bit and 64-bit). Windows 7 support is not guaranteed, though there is no reason why these binaries shouldn't work. In case of any trouble, please recompile the code from scratch using the instructions in the sections below.

The Windows versions were compiled using the Microsoft VC++ 2008 Express compiler and hence need the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 redistributable to work. Please download and install the package applicable to your OS and CPu architecture. The redistributable files should come preinstalled on Vista, and on later Service Packs for Windows XP.

Please ensure that your video card drivers are upto date. XRaySim needs OpenGL 1.5 support to work correctly (for the use of Vertex arrays and Vertex Buffer Objects). In the unlikely case that you have a much older card, please follow the configuration instructions below to disable VBOs/ vertex arrays.

Compiling from source:

XRaySim depends on the following open-source libraries.

FLTK (http://www.fltk.org) - FLTK is a platform-independent windowing system for easily writing user-interfaces, released under the GNU GPL. XRaySim is written against FLTK 2.0, which does not have a stable release yet. In order to get compile, download a weekly snapshot from the website, or grab the latest source from the FLTK repository.

Boost.Spirit (http://boost-spirit.com/home) - Boost.Spirit is a small and extremely versatile generic string parser framework. The scripting system controlling XRaySim's material system uses Boost.Spirit extensively. Luckily, the package needs no compilation, just get the sources from the website and point your IDE to the location of the headers before compiling.

CImg (http://cimg.sourceforge.net) - CImg is a generic, cross-platform and easy to use image loading library. It contains one header file (which is already included with the XRaySim source), so you do not need to download anything extra. XRaySim is pre-configured to use the CImg header included with the source distribution. In case you need to use a newer version of the library (for implementing some advanced features), download and overwrite the file in the XRaySim source distribution.

GLEW (http://glew.sourceforge.net) - GLEW is a very useful wrapper for using OpenGL extensions across platforms without headaches. Pre-compiled GLEW libraries are available from the website which need to be linked with the XRaySim source.

Depending on which IDE/ compiler combination you are using, instructions will vary.

Microsoft Windows : XRaySim has been succesfully compiled on Windows using the Visual C++ 2008 Express and the Visual C++ 2005 Express compilers. It should also compile with the MinGW compiler without any hassles. The use of an IDE is optional. The above libraries should be downloaded first. Point your search directories to find the .c** .h and .lib files in them, and compile the entire source distribution.

Linux/ MacOSX: Unfortunately, no precompiled binaries are available for these platforms as of yet. Using the gcc compiler, XRaySim should (ideally) compile on both of these platforms. A linux distribution is currently in the works and a MacOSX version should be in the works soon, depending on how early the author can get his hands on a system :-) . If you are interested in helping out with the Linux or Mac releases, please feel free to send the author an email (contact information is available at the bottom of this page)

Presentations:

The current version of XRaySim was first showcased at the NDE2009 conference. The slides from the original presentation are available here (PDF). Please note that all of the sub-modules are not open-sourced currently. The reconstruction module is still being used internally, and will hopefully find its way into the next stable release. For a full list of currently available features, please visit the features page.

A very brief presentation outlining some of custom developed algorithms is available here (PDF). This outlines the basic idea behind the imaging algorithms and reveals some implementation details. Citations are also provided at the end for further information.

More information:

More information is available in the download package. Please read the RELEASE.txt first for some introductory information about the release. The README.txt file with the pre-compiled files also provides some useful information for gettings started with XRaySim.