Opticks Extension Development - Get Started In Less Than 15 Minutes

The Opticks Open-Source Programming Contest deadline is just 3 weeks away (June 4th, 2010). And along with this, I was inspired to come up with a way to quick start extension development for Opticks. So, over the weekend I created a Quick Start package for use on Windows, which is only 33 MB. You only need to download this and can skip downloading the Opticks Windows SDK, which is 266 MB, so I just saved you 233 MB of download time.

So, what do you get out of the Quick Start?
Download it, double-click on two batch files and you will have two tutorial plug-ins compiled and installed into your Opticks install that you can start using with a sample data file that's been bundled into the Quick Start. From there you can modify these plug-ins or create your own using the instructions bundled in the Quick Start.

So, what do you need?

• Quick Start Download
• exe - this is a self extracting 7z, just double-click. No need to install anything.
• OR
  
• 7zip - if you don't want to use above self extracting exe. You should download and install 7-Zip File Manager to extract this.
• Opticks 4.3.3 32-bit
• Python, 2.5 or 2.6 are known to work.

Then unzip the Quick Start package and open the README.html in your web browser for further instructions. You'll be up and running in 15 minutes, probably less.

Hopefully, this is the impetus you need to start developing a plug-in for the Opticks programming contest or just to develop plug-in for Opticks in general. Don't forget you can win a Nintendo Wii or PS3 in the contest.