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Inviwo is a software framework for rapid visualization prototyping (3D HGistopathology)

Hazem Abbas

Nov 4, 2023 — 3 min read

Inviwo is a software framework for rapid visualization prototyping. It is freely available under the Simplified BSD License and runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. The framework is easily extendable through external modules and projects. The core is written in C/C++ with minor dependencies. It supports modern graphics programming, parallel computing on multiple platforms, Python scripting, and has a GUI based on Qt. The build system is performed through CMake and requires C++17.

Features

Rapid prototyping

Inviwo provides a user-friendly interface for creating custom visualizations. These visualizations can be saved, modified, and reused with different data.

Python integration

Inviwo supports Python 3.7 API, development, and scripting for batch processing.

Full extendability

Inviwo can be extended by implementing custom Processors organized in modules. Refer to our tutorials on creating processors and modules.

Data types

Inviwo can read and visualize various data types, including HD5, DICOM, RAW, and TIFF stacks. This allows visualization of data from different simulations and imaging modalities.

Below follow some general information about the framework:

Freely available under the Simplified BSD License.
Cross-platform and runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
Easily extendable through inclusion of external modules and projects.

Core

The core is written in C/C++ only, with minor dependencies.

Modules

Modern graphics programming through OpenGL (>= 3.3 Core) related modules.
Parallel computing on multiple platforms (GPU/CPU) through OpenCL (>= 1.0) related modules.
Python (> 3.2) scripting and computation is supported through provided modules.

GUI

The primary GUI is based on Qt (Supported >= 5.12).
A minimal application is available, utilizing GLFW 3 for multiple window and context management.

Build system

The project and module configuration/generation is performed through CMake (>= 3.12.0).
Inviwo has been compiled in Visual Studio 2019, Clang 8, GCC 9, XCode 11
C++17 Required

Citation

If you use the Inviwo code for your research, please cite our paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8730513


@Article{inviwo2019,
    author   = {J{\"o}nsson, Daniel and Steneteg, Peter and Sund{\'e}n, Erik and Englund, Rickard and Kottravel, Sathish and Falk, Martin and Ynnerman, Anders and Hotz, Ingrid and Ropinski, Timo},
    title    = {Inviwo - A Visualization System with Usage Abstraction Levels},
    journal  = {IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics},
    year     = {2019},
    volume   = {26},
    number   = {11},
    pages    = {3241-3254},
    doi      = {10.1109/TVCG.2019.2920639},
    ISSN     = {1077-2626},
}