Installing ODL extensions¶

Compiled extensions¶

There are several compiled extensions to ODL. Some of them can be installed using conda or pip, others require manual compilation. This section assumes that you have a working installation of python and ODL.

ASTRA for X-ray tomography¶

To calculate fast forward and backward projections for image reconstruction in X-ray tomography, install the ASTRA tomography toolbox. ASTRA projectors are fully supported in ODL.

Astra is most easily installed using conda:

$ conda install -c astra-toolbox astra-toolbox

For further instructions, check the ASTRA GitHub page.

CUDA backend for linear arrays¶

Warning

This plugin is dysfunctional with ODL master since the API change introduced by PR 1088. It can be used with older versions of ODL (e.g., with the current release). The plugin will be replaced by CuPy in short (PR 1231).

The odlcuda backend for fast array calculations on CUDA requires the CUDA toolkit (on Linux: use your distro package manager) and a CUDA capable graphics card with compute capability of at least 3.0. Search this table for your model.

Building from source¶

You have two options of building odlcuda from source. For both, first clone the odlcuda GitHub repository and enter the new directory:

$ git clone https://github.com/odlgroup/odlcuda.git
$ cd odlcuda

Using conda build

This is the simpler option and should work on any Linux or MacOS system (we currently have no Windows build recipe, sorry).

To build the conda recipe, you should be in the root conda environment (see Installing Anaconda for details) and in the top-level directory of your odlcuda clone. You also need the conda-build package, which is installed by
```
$ conda install conda-build
```
Next, switch to the conda-build branch:
```
$ git checkout conda-build
```
Finally, build the package using conda build. Currently, this requires you to manually provide the location of the CUDA toolkit and the compute capability of your graphics card using the environment variables CUDA_ROOT and CUDA_COMPUTE. (If you forget them, the build recipe will only issue a warning in the beginning but fail later on.) The CUDA_ROOT is given as path, e.g. /usr/local/cuda, and CUDA_COMPUTE as 2-digit number without dot, e.g. 30.

Note

You can consult this table for the compute capability of your device. The minimum required is 30, which corresponds to the "Kepler" generation.

Assuming the example configuration above, the build command to run is
```
$ CUDA_ROOT=/usr/local/cuda CUDA_COMPUTE=30 conda build ./conda
```
This command builds odlcuda in a separate build conda environment and tries to import it and run some tests after the build has finished. If all goes well, you will get a message at the end that shows the path to the conda package.

Finally, install this package file in your working conda environment (e.g. source activate odl-py35) by invoking e.g.
```
$ conda install --use-local odlcuda
```
Manually with CMake

This option requires more manual work but is known to work on all platforms.

See here for build instructions. You may want to use include and library paths (GCC, boost, ...) of a conda enviroment and install the package in it.

A simple test if this build of odlcuda works, you can run

$ python -c "import odl; odl.rn(3, impl='cuda').element()"

If you get a KeyError: 'cuda', then something went wrong with the package installation since it cannot be imported. If the above command instead raises a MemoryError or similar, your graphics card is not properly configured, and you should solve that issue first.