[Gate-users] How to compile a new geometry class?

[David Boersma]

Hi Andreas,

Den 01/06/2017 kl. 09:39, skrev Andreas Menzel:
> Dear Gate community,
> 
> probably this has been asked before, but it seems I cannot use the 
> mailing list's archive.
> 
> So, can someone please tell me where to find instructions on how to 
> compile a newly added class in Gate? I don't seem to find it in the 
> online documentation, either.
> 
> To be specific, I am supposed to do a simulation which contains a rather 
> complex collimator. As the Gate scripting language does not seem to 
> support what I am trying to do, I decided to use two different ways and 
> try out which one works better: The first one is to use Geant4's boolean 
> solids and do subtractions of geometry primitives. The second would be 
> to load a GDML file containing the geometry which also can be done in 
> Geant4. I only started the first one and I wrote a Gate geometry class 
> and a messenger connected to it as well as the necessary header files.
> 
> Now, is there some template makefile / CMakeLists.txt I could use to 
> actually compile these and test them? Or do I just put the sources into 
> the location of the other Gate sources and re-make the whole thing so 
> that the new files are compiled?

I think that is the most straightforward way. Since you are developing 
something new, you should use the head of the "develop" branch on 
GitHub. Our official repository is here:

https://github.com/OpenGATE/Gate

(On the "Git" page of our website we still advertise an outdated git 
server. I hope we can update/clean that outdated web page soon. For now 
it's better to get all your git documentation & tutorials from the 
github website.)

(If you just would like to retrieve & build the latest greatest 
development version of gate then you can just "clone" directly from 
there. But since you are planning to develop your own thing, it's 
recommended to get your own (free) github account and make a "fork" 
first, "clone" your "fork", make a new "branch", then when you are happy 
with your new feature you "push" that "branch" back to your "fork" on 
github and then you submit a "pull request" so that your new feature may 
(or may not) be included into the official Gate development. On the 
GitHub website you can find extensive help and tutorials for all the 
"quoted operations". It takes some time to get used to all these git 
things, but in the medium/long term it's a good system. And GitHub is 
used by a very large developer community, so it's a very useful skill to 
learn.)

You shouldn't need to edit anything in the CMakeLists.txt file unless 
you are doing exotic things with external libraries of 
platform-dependent features. Just add your new geometry classes in the 
"include" and "src" subdirectories of Gate/source/geometry, then run 
ccmake and make, etc, as described on our wiki.

> 
> Thanks for your help!

Good luck!
David B.

> 
> Andreas Menzel
>