Before Starting SCIRun

Before starting SCIRun:

The following sections discuss each of these tasks.

Dynamic Compilation

Before starting SCIRun users should be aware of a feature called Dynamic Compilation.

Dynamic compilation is a technique used by SCIRun to discover and generate code for the data types and algorithms used by modules. This is done at runtime and is done once for each new data type and algorithm encountered. This technique provides a number of benefits (not discussed here).

By default, code generated by dynamic compilation is stored in each user's home directory in ~/SCIRun/on-the-fly-libs/os where os is one of Linux, IRIX, etc. The location of dynamically generated code is changed by setting the value of the environment variable SCIRUN_ON_THE_FLY_LIBS_DIR to the desired directory For example, in a shell terminal type:

mkdir ~/scratch/SCIRun_otfl
    

then, for sh-type shells type:

SCIRUN_ON_THE_FLY_LIBS_DIR=~/scratch/SCIRun_otfl
export SCIRUN_ON_THE_FLY_LIBS_DIR
    

for csh-type shells type:

setenv SCIRUN_ON_THE_FLY_LIBS_DIR ~/scratch/SCIRun_otfl
    

The location of the “on-the-fly” directory can also be changed by setting the value of SCIRUN_ON_THE_FLY_LIBS_DIR in the .scirunrc file. This file is read by SCIRun at startup. .scirunrc could contain, for example:

SCIRUN_ON_THE_FLY_LIBS_DIR=$(HOME)/SCIRun_otf
      

See the SCIRun Users Guide for more information on the use of .scirunrc.