Documentation/Labs/Qt5-and-VTK8

This page documents the update of Slicer to use Qt 5.

Overview

Because Qt4 is not actively developed (as documented here support ended), we need to work toward supporting Qt5. This page summarizes support status of the various components of Slicer stack and remaining tasks.

Status

• Current main integration branch for testing:

As of 2017-06-19 this is: https://github.com/jcfr/Slicer/tree/support-qt5-2017-06-08-r26073

Original branch: https://github.com/jcfr/Slicer/commits/support-qt5

• Work-in-progress branch that partially builds
  • 2017-01:
    • https://github.com/Slicer/Slicer/pull/648 corresponding to branch https://github.com/Slicer/Slicer/compare/master...jcfr:support-qt5?expand=1
  • 2016-12:
    • Slicer: https://github.com/Slicer/Slicer/compare/master...pieper:slicer-qt5?expand=1
    • CTK: https://github.com/commontk/CTK/compare/master...pieper:slicer-qt5?expand=1

A first running example described in this commit

• Superbuild configure command on mac using Qt 5.7 stock downloads

cmake \
  -DQT_QMAKE_EXECUTABLE:FILEPATH=/Users/pieper/Qt/5.7/clang_64/bin/qmake \
  -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH:PATH=/Users/pieper/Qt/5.7/clang_64/ \
  -DCMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET:STRING=10.9 \
  -DSlicer_USE_PYTHONQT_WITH_TCL:BOOL=OFF \
  -DSlicer_USE_SimpleITK:BOOL=OFF \
  -DSlicer_USE_QtTesting:BOOL=OFF \
  -DSlicer_BUILD_EXTENSIONMANAGER_SUPPORT:BOOL=OFF \
  -DSlicer_QT_VERSION:STRING=5 \
  ../Slicer

Platform Notes

Experimental build on Window:

• Visual Studio Community 2015
• Qt 5.7
  • Include QtWebEngine and QtScript during install
  • Select 2015 64 bit install
• Qt 5.8
  • Use Visual Studio Community 2015 or above. Qt-5.8 does not support QtWebEngine for msvc 2013.

Known Issues

• Slice viewers do not have the expected size after changing layout

To Do List

All platforms

• Slicer build system upgrade: To be done
  • Add Slicer_QT_VERSION option that could be set to either 4 or 5 - See what is done in CTK
  • Fix qRestAPI to support Qt5 (or turn off Slicer_BUILD_EXTENSIONMANAGER_SUPPORT for testing) - See
  • Update use of QT4_* macros (see below) - See what is done in CTK
    • The QT5_ versions of the macros appear to be directly compatible
  • Port from QtWebKit to QtWebEngine
    • Update of classes using WebKit to work with WebEngineView (these includes "Extension Manager", "Data Store", "Chart View" and `qMRMLExpandingWebView`).
    • `qSlicerWebWidget` should be improved, moved to CTK and used for all widgets making use of a web view.
  • update PythonQt to the latest Qt version
    • Look at updating PythonQt to support QWebEngine
  • Fix differences in plugin loading
  • Update packaging scripts (SlicerBlockInstallQt.cmake, SlicerCPackBundleFixup.cmake)
  • Update build script to support qt5 (see https://github.com/jcfr/qt-easy-build )
  • Update Slicer build instruction on developer wiki
• Qt5::Network is now a dependency of Base/QTCore (Networking module in Qt5 has classes like QNetworkProxyFactory that were in Qt4's QtCore module)
• Transparency is handled differently: see problem in this discussion thread http://vtk.1045678.n5.nabble.com/Strange-renderering-with-mixed-polydata-volume-with-QVTKOpenGLWidget-td5743309.html and a related fix in ITKSnap https://github.com/pyushkevich/itksnap/blob/master/GUI/Qt/main.cxx#L572-L574 and
• Command line arguments to expose webgl and webengine debugging

./Slicer-build/Slicer --enable-experimental-web-platform-features --enable-unsafe-es3-apis --remote-debugging-port=12117 --use-gl=desktop

Linux

• fix fox `libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile`

Minimal working release experimental build (no cli, ssl, simpleitk, ...) built on ubuntu 16.04, tested on debian 8

• needed to manually copy shared libraries:
  • libasound.so.2
  • libxslt.so.1
  • libsmime3
  • libstdc++.so.6 (glibc mismatch, needed GLIBCXX_3.4.21) should build instead with manylinux
• like on mac, need to create bin/platfrms and bin/sqldrivers and copy in platforms/libqxcb.so and sqldrivers/libqsqlite.so

Mac

• • on Mac, QT_NO_OPENSSL is defined, but so is QSslError leading to redefined symbol [1](here).
  • Mac crash in qSlicerUnitsSettingsPanelPrivate::addQuantity, appears to be corrupted model. partly addressed by r25855 . Most expedient solution is probably to disable the units settings panel in the application settings since is not widely used in the application.
  • Add libqcocoa.dylib and libqsqlite.dylib to package for mac

  mkdir Slicer-build/bin/Slicer.app/Contents/MacOS/sqldrivers
  cp ~/Qt/5.7/clang_64/plugins/sqldrivers/libqsqlite.dylib Slicer-build/bin/Slicer.app/Contents/MacOS/sqldrivers/
  mkdir Slicer-build/bin/Slicer.app/Contents/MacOS/platforms
  cp ~/Qt/5.7/clang_64/plugins/platforms/libqcocoa.dylib Slicer-build/bin/Slicer.app/Contents/MacOS/platforms/

• Workarounds here:

https://gist.github.com/pieper/59de820ad08cf3c0f7a33926397e612d

Windows

• qtstyleplugins library needs to be removed or ported to support windows
  • add declspec exports/imports
  • create .lib for use in QTGUI
  • support shared/static build?
• AppLauncher settings need to be update
  • Add to PYTHONPATH: <superbuild>/VTKv7-build/bin/Debug (currently lib not bin)
  • Add to PATH: <Qt>/5.7/msvc2013_64/bin
• Debug build runs very slowly - can it be improved? Build is very slow too, but the application runs so slowly in debug mode that it is basically unusable (this is a change from previous version that were usable for testing real workflows in debug mode).
• Setting Slicer_USE_SimpleITK to ON in CMake results in compile-time errors.
• Creating a debug build (MSVC 2013, Qt5.7) creates a compile time error on PythonQt.cpp while building the CTK project with message:

  • Error 1220 error C1128: number of sections exceeded object file format limit: compile with /bigobj 

SuperBuild Dependencies

• PythonQt: Done
  • Need to update to Qt 5.7 in current PythonQt trunk (currently 5.6) and CommonTK PythonQt (currently 5.4)

• CTK support: Done

• VTK
  • Support for QVTKWidget/QVTKWidget2: Done
  • QML support for VTK render windows: To Be Done
    • Not yet required by Slicer core
    • Jc@Kitware: We experimented with few approaches internally.

• ITKv4: NA

• Usage of QT4_ macros:

$ ack --cmake -i "qt4"
CMake/SlicerMacroBuildModuleQtLibrary.cmake
116:  QT4_WRAP_CPP(MODULEQTLIBRARY_MOC_OUTPUT ${MODULEQTLIBRARY_MOC_SRCS})
118:  QT4_WRAP_UI(MODULEQTLIBRARY_UI_CXX ${MODULEQTLIBRARY_UI_SRCS})
121:    QT4_ADD_RESOURCES(MODULEQTLIBRARY_QRC_SRCS ${MODULEQTLIBRARY_RESOURCES})
127:  QT4_ADD_RESOURCES(MODULEQTLIBRARY_QRC_SRCS ${Slicer_LOGOS_RESOURCE})

CMake/SlicerMacroTranslation.cmake
83:    QT4_CREATE_TRANSLATION(QM_OUTPUT_FILES ${FILES_TO_TRANSLATE} ${TS_FILES})
85:    QT4_ADD_TRANSLATION(QM_OUTPUT_FILES ${TS_FILES})

CMake/SlicerMacroBuildQtModule.cmake
132:  QT4_WRAP_CPP(LOADABLEMODULE_MOC_OUTPUT ${LOADABLEMODULE_MOC_SRCS})
134:  QT4_WRAP_UI(LOADABLEMODULE_UI_CXX ${LOADABLEMODULE_UI_SRCS})
137:    QT4_ADD_RESOURCES(LOADABLEMODULE_QRC_SRCS ${LOADABLEMODULE_RESOURCES})
143:  QT4_ADD_RESOURCES(LOADABLEMODULE_QRC_SRCS ${Slicer_LOGOS_RESOURCE})

CMake/SlicerMacroBuildApplication.cmake
141:  QT4_WRAP_CPP(SLICERAPPLIB_MOC_OUTPUT ${SLICERAPPLIB_MOC_SRCS})
142:  QT4_WRAP_UI(SLICERAPPLIB_UI_CXX ${SLICERAPPLIB_UI_SRCS})
144:    QT4_ADD_RESOURCES(SLICERAPPLIB_QRC_SRCS ${SLICERAPPLIB_RESOURCES})

CMake/SlicerBlockFindQtAndCheckVersion.cmake
22:# The CMake code used to find Qt4 has been factored out into this CMake script so that
27:  find_package(Qt4)
28:  if(NOT QT4_FOUND)

CMake/SlicerMacroBuildBaseQtLibrary.cmake
35:#                           using QT4_WRAP_CPP CMake macro
38:#                           QT4_WRAP_UI CMake macro
47:#                           using QT4_ADD_RESOURCES
141:  QT4_WRAP_CPP(SLICERQTBASELIB_MOC_OUTPUT ${SLICERQTBASELIB_MOC_SRCS})
142:  QT4_WRAP_UI(SLICERQTBASELIB_UI_CXX ${SLICERQTBASELIB_UI_SRCS})
144:    QT4_ADD_RESOURCES(SLICERQTBASELIB_QRC_SRCS ${SLICERQTBASELIB_RESOURCES})
147:  QT4_ADD_RESOURCES(SLICERQTBASELIB_QRC_SRCS ${Slicer_SOURCE_DIR}/Resources/qSlicer.qrc)

Modules/Loadable/Models/Testing/Cxx/CMakeLists.txt
15:QT4_GENERATE_MOCS(

Modules/Loadable/Transforms/Testing/Cxx/CMakeLists.txt
9:QT4_GENERATE_MOCS(

Modules/Loadable/VolumeRendering/Testing/Cxx/CMakeLists.txt
36:QT4_GENERATE_MOCS(

Libs/MRML/Widgets/CMakeLists.txt
363:QT4_WRAP_CPP(MRMLWidgets_MOC_CXX ${MRMLWidgets_MOC_SRCS})
364:QT4_WRAP_UI(MRMLWidgets_UI_CXX ${MRMLWidgets_UI_SRCS})
365:QT4_ADD_RESOURCES(MRMLWidgets_QRC_CXX ${MRMLWidgets_QRC_SRCS})

Libs/MRML/Widgets/Testing/CMakeLists.txt
139:QT4_WRAP_CPP(Tests_MOC_CXX ${Tests_MOC_SRCS})
140:QT4_GENERATE_MOCS(

CMakeLists.txt
570:# Module name should be specified as they appear in FindQt4.cmake

Base/QTCore/Testing/Cxx/CMakeLists.txt
37:  QT4_GENERATE_MOCS(
42:    QT4_GENERATE_MOCS(
49:    QT4_GENERATE_MOCS(
54:  QT4_ADD_RESOURCES(Tests Resources/${KIT}Testing.qrc)
60:    list(APPEND KIT_TEST_TARGET_LIBRARIES Qt4::QtTest)

Base/QTGUI/Testing/Cxx/CMakeLists.txt
45:    QT4_GENERATE_MOCS(${KIT_TEST_MOC_SRCS})
48:  QT4_ADD_RESOURCES(Tests Resources/${KIT}Testing.qrc)

Migration Guide

To do items (partial list):

• update loadable modules to use new plugin macros
• any use of QWebKit needs to switch to QWebEngine

List of extensions that may require updates

TBD (probably all extensions need work)

Future works

NA

References

• Qt 4.8 support schedule info: http://slicer-devel.65872.n3.nabble.com/Fwd-Qt-4-8-x-support-extended-out-by-a-year-td4033248.html
• http://blog.qt.io/blog/2014/11/27/qt-4-8-x-support-to-be-extended-for-another-year