MITK BlueBerry FAQ

FAQ - openCherry / MITK / Qt3 / Qt4

Feel free to post any questions which are not covered in this FAQ to mitk-users@lists.sourceforge.net (subscription required).

What is openCherry and what is its relationship to MITK?

openCherry is an application framework, which is used to build the new Qt4 based "MainApp" of MITK. It has no dependencies on MITK and can be used to build arbitrary, modularized applications. MITK as a toolkit does not depend on openCherry, but if you want to use or extend the Qt4 MainApp, you need to build openCherry.

I want to build Qt4 applications using MITK, do I need openCherry?

To build your own applications with MITK and Qt4, you do not need openCherry. MITK provides many Qt4 widgets tailored for medical applications, which are available as a shared library (libQmitk). The MITK Tutorial shows you how to build standalone Qt4 applications using MITK.

However, if you intend to build larger applications, or if you want to use existing MITK plug-ins, you should use openCherry (for example by using the Qt4 MainApp).

I want to start developing with MITK, shall I use Qt3 or Qt4?

Well, the answer largely depends on what you intend to do. If you are going to develop your own application from scratch, there is no reason not to choose Qt4. If you are looking for a stable application which you can extend with your own code, you may still want to use the Qt3 MainApp. It has been developed for years and is therefore more stable than the new Qt4 version. Converting simple Qt3 functionalities to the new Qt4/openCherry plug-in system is relatively painless. Internally, we are moving all Qt3 code to the new Qt4 MainApp, so you can expect it to mature fast.