root.bnl valeri fine (bnl, star)
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Using the Qt framework to create GUI for the complex interactive HENP applications. Whether it is feasible to benefit just from the two best technologies. http://root.bnl.gov Valeri Fine (BNL, STAR). Abstract. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
http://root.bnl.gov
Valeri Fine (BNL, STAR)
Whether it is feasible to benefit just from the two best technologies
Using the Qt framework to create GUI for the complex interactive HENP
applications
11/22/2004 BNL technology meeting [email protected]
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Abstract This talk presents the overview of the main components of
the unique technology creating the complex data-analysis and the computer simulation interactive
software packages and problem-oriented applications based on Qt and ROOT frameworks.
The system has been under development for last 4 years. It is developed mainly within STAR (and at some point it
was supported by US Atlas) and it is included in the regular distribution of the ROOT package. The later is a “de facto” standard of the HENP OO frameworks for the
modern HENP experiments
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Batch and interactive stages
• GUI is not the first concern of the HENP frameworks. We worry whether we are capable to collect, preserve, re-distribute our hard-earned TBytes.
• However the final stages of the job are mainly interactive.
• The very first steps of the data-taking in the “control rooms” are interactive also
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Operating system “model” for HENP cross-platform applications
“pro”It is not unusual when the life cycle of the major HENP
applications last for dozens years.In other words it is much more then the life cycle of any
known “system components” like operating system, file system, GUI etc. and hardware as well.
To survive the sophisticated and expansive HENP applications must be in possession of some (tiny) layer to separate the HENP applications and the concrete system environment evolvement.
It is possible by introducing some sort of the “virtual operating system model” the applications rely on; and providing the implementation of that model as soon as operating environment evolves.
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Even though it does allow to prolong the life cycle of the software package that comes for the price.
• One is still required to learn and maintain the specific pieces of the code for many different platforms,
• and the different versions of one and the same platform for the entire application life.
• That sometimes entails the narrowing the number of different platforms the package is available for.
• On the other hand many features one has to deal with are not application specific.
• This implies that the good layer can be ''borrowed'' from some third party dedicated packag
Operating system “model” for HENP cross-platform applications
“cons”
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ROOT low level GUI interface
TVirtualX
TGX11TGWIN32 TGWin32GDK
ROOT(TG<family
>
ROOT(TVirtualPad)
3 different implementations to develop and support
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Why Qt?The present model has been serving ROOT and ROOT users
very well for 9 years soon.On the other hand, most tasks to be performed and implement
have no ROOT specific and have been successfully solved by other packages.
• Qt package from TrollTech AS was especially attractive not only due to its superior quality and high level technical support but because it comes with the source code and tools to build it in place (including a commercial version for Windows).
• The rich set of Qt documentation can be found on Web and available from the leading publishers as well.
• Qt is a multi-platform C++ application framework that developers can use to write single-source applications that run-natively-on Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X and embedded Linux.
• Qt has been used to build thousands of successful commercial applications worldwide,
• and is the basis of the open source KDE desktop environment.
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Why Qt (cont.)• Cross platforms• Documentation• Open Source (including Win32)• The “native” development tool integration• “Native” GUI (Win32, Mac) integration• Free (for x11 and Mac)• “non-commercial” for Win32• Microsoft Foundation classes migration• Motif migration• Embedded platform
The review http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/7184/guitool.html of the more then 100 different GUI packages named Qt “the best GUI packages”
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Qt – “softgate” to 3d party applications
• Qt – rich itself, but there is nothing up with that. All modern GUI system (GDK, MFC, Motif etc) are in possession more/less the same functionality.
• Qt authors addressed many hot issues and the main one is how to connect the different packages within one application seamlessly?
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Qt cornerstones
• Signal / Slot C++ object communication mechanism
• OO model: Qt uses the named generic container of the named generic containers. In other words Qt basic OO model is a the tree-like structure
These allow significantly simply the 3d-These allow significantly simply the 3d-party interactive libraries integration. party interactive libraries integration.
They made it possible at last!They made it possible at last!
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Why now?Qt and ROOT timeline
• 1994: Trolltech founded in Oslo, Norway
• 1996: First sale of Qt (to European Space Agency)
• 1998: Created the KDE Free Qt Foundation • 1998: Released Qt/X11 under the QPL• 1999: Qt 2 released • 1999: Opened Australian office • 1999: Received first-round funding • 2000: Released Qt/Embedded • 2000: Opened US office • 2000: Released Qt/X11 under the GPL• 2001: First Qtopia adoption (by Sharp Electronics)
2001: Qt 3 released • 2002: Teambuilder released • 2003: QSA released • 2003: Released Qt/Mac under the GPL• 2003: Introduces Qt Solutions • 2004: Released Qtopia Phone Edition
http://www.trolltech.com/company/history.html
• Jan 95: Thinking/writing/rewriting/???• November 95: Public seminar, show Root 0.5• Spring 96: decision to use CINT• Jan 97: Root version 1.0 • Jan 98: Root version 2.0 – STAR ROOT-based
offline framework
• Mar 99: Root version 2.21/08 (1st Root workshop FNAL)
• Feb 00: Root version 2.23/12 (2nd Root workshop CERN)
• Mar 01: Root version 3.00/06• Jun 01: Root version 3.01/05 (3rd Root workshop
FNAL)• Jan 02: Root version 3.02/07 (LCG project starts:
RTAGs)• Oct 02: Root version 3.03/09 (4th Root workshop
CERN)• Dec 03: Root version 3.10/02 (last PRO release)• Feb 04: Towards version 4.00 (5th Root workshop
SLAC) http://www.slac.stanford.edu/BFROOT/www/Computing/Distributed/ROOT2004/files/brun.ppt
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Approaching Qt
• Qt “alone” - LHC++ (CERN)• Qt “outside” - GO4 approach (GSI)• Qt “just inside” - Acat2002 (STAR)• Qt “side by side” - Qt CINT approach
(Masa Goto, HP Japan)• Qt “deep inside” - Acat2003 (STAR)
Goals:
• Immediate man-power conservation – “experiment target”
• Insure the package long healthy life (25 years?) – “developer target”
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ROOT Qt-based GUI interface
TVirtualX
TGQt
ROOTROOT
only one (!) implementation
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ROOT GUI class library and Qt layer
• The above Qt layer first was present last year on Acat2002 @ Moscow and has the significant drawback.
• Event though it solves the problem of combining the ROOT Canvas and Qt widgets within one single application it was not compatible with the ROOT GUI class library and the compatibility with the conventional ROOT development.
TVirtualX
TGQt
QObject
TQtClientFilter
TGQt::CreateWindow(…)
TGQt::Init(…)
QWidget::installEventFilter
QFrame
TQtClientWidget
QWidget
QPtrQueue<Event_t> fRootEventQueue
TGQt::NextEvent()
TGClient::ProcessOneEvent
Event_t QEvent
Transformation the QEvent Q-object into the ROOT Event_t structure
QWidget
TQtWidget
TGQt::InitWindow(…)
method
• “Clear boxes” show the overloaded methods of the TVirtualX interface
Class name
• “Gray boxes” show the Classes inheritance diagram
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ROOT Qt-based GUI interface
TVirtualX
TGQt
ROOTROOT
TCanvas/TPadROOT Gui class
library
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ROOT vs Qt
• To run ROOT– Create TApplication– Enter ROOT event loop TApplication::Run
• To run Qt– Create QApplication– Enter Qt event loop QApplication::exec()
This implementation:
TApplication QApplication
TApplication::Run() QApplication::exec()
Bottom line: No need to deal with QApplication!
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Qt Root “Hello Word”
2. QtROOT “Hello Word” source file
1. Qt “Hello Word” source file#include <qapplication.h>#include <qpushbutton.h>int main( int argc, char **argv ){ QApplication a( argc, argv );// to be replaced QPushButton hello( "Hello world!", 0 ); hello.resize( 100, 30 ); a.setMainWidget( &hello ); // to be removed hello.show(); return a.exec(); // to be replaced}
#include <TRint.h>#include <qpushbutton.h>int main( int argc, char **argv ){ // Create an interactive ROOT application TRint *theApp = new TRint("Rint", &argc, argv); QPushButton hello( "Hello world!", 0 ); hello.resize( 100, 30 ); hello.show(); theApp->Run(); // and enter the event loop...}
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How to make ROOT application Qt-aware
Copy the custom version of ".rootrc" file into your working directory
Unix:Gui.Backend: qt Gui.Factory: qtguiPlugin.TGuiFactory: qtgui TQtGUIFactory QtGui "TQtGUIFactory()"
Gui.Backend: qt Gui.Factory: qt
Windows:Gui.Backend: qtwin32 Gui.Factory: qtguiwin32
No correction of the user code!
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Additional resource parameters
Plugin.TVirtualPadEditor: Ged TQtGedEditor QtGed "TQtGedEditor(TCanvas*)"
# GUI specific settingsGui.Style: windows
Plugin.TPaletteEditor: * TQtPaletteEditor QtImage "TQtPaletteEditor(TAttImage*,UInt_t,UInt_t)“
Plugin.TImage: * TQtImage QtImage "TQtImage()"
Qt-base “Pad” Editor
TImage class Qt-based implementation
Customize “look and fell”
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BenefitsOne can include Qt-based GUI
components and packages into ROOT based applications
Coin3D
GO4
Qwt
QGLViewer
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A test application to combine ROOT and Qt Widget
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ROOT QtGLWidget
A fragment of STAR “Event Display” QtGLViewer
class based viewer
see: http://www.rhic.bnl.gov/~fine/EventDisplay )
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High resolution OpenGL pictures(fragment STAR detector at RHIC
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STAR reconstructed eventsIt is also possible to use the Coin3D package to visualize ROOT objects
STAR Detector with real tracks
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How to make Qt application ROOT-aware
That’s easy!!!One needs a few standard and well defined
by Qt documentation steps, namely:1.Launch the Qt “designer”2.Load the TQtWidget.cw file which is a Qt
designer definition of the “custom widget”3.Add the list of ROOT libraries and header
file to your Qt project4.That’s all5.Use Qt desinger the why Qt prescribes
No correction of the Qt documentation
http://doc.trolltech.com/3.3/designer-manual-2.html
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http://root.bnl.gov/QtRoot/root/qtExamples/ex1/README
• wget http://root.bnl.gov/QtRoot/downloads/qtRootProject.tar.gz"
• qmake tqrootexample.pro• make• tqrootexample [-style=windows | platinum | motif ]
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How to make ROOT application Qt-aware
1.Install the ROOT with the Qt layer. 2.Use any Qt widgets as prescribed. No
need to worry about Qt initilization and qt event loop. ROOT Qt layer takes carre about this.
That’s simple nowadays!!!
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ConclusionThere are enough evidences the present approach allows the ROOT developers as well as ROOT users to work with code that has no X11 / WIN32 graphics subsystem dependencies and at the same time opens unrestricted access to a rich set of ready-to-use commercial and free GUI Qt-based widgets and interactive applications.
Qt layer is provided as the standard ROOT “plug-in” share library. That allows user to turn the layer on/off at run time with no change of recompilation of the user’s code.
At the moment the project consists of two large pieces. The core part called “Root Qt layer” had been adopted by ROOT team and it is included since ROOT release 4.00.08 in the standard ROOT CERN distribution and available from ROOT CVS repository @ CERN. The second part is a set of the Qt-based application built on the top of the “Qt layer”. It is called “ROOT Qt extensions” and available from BNL CVS repository (provided by ITD@BNL)
Information about progress can be found on BNL Web site:
http://root.bnl.gov
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Qt framework + Qt GUI +
ROOT Data-Analysis and Visualization facility
= New generation of the powerful interactive applications
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References • CINT status, Masa Goto
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/BFROOT/www/Computing/Distributed/ROOT2004/files/goto.ppt
• Cross-platform approach to create the interactive application based on ROOT and Qt GUI libraries.http://www-conf.kek.jp/acat03/prog/presen/id0112.ppt
• ROOT in GO4, Joern Adamczewski http://www.slac.stanford.edu/BFROOT/www/Computing/Distributed/ROOT2004/files/adamczewski.ppt
• Cross-platform Qt-based implementation of low level GUI layer of ROOT
http://acat02.sinp.msu.ru/presentations/fine/Acat2002.ppt
• Cross-platform approach to create the interactive application based on ROOT and Qt GUI librarieshttp://www-conf.kek.jp/acat03/prog/presen/id0112.ppt
• Visualization of the ROOT 3D class objects with Open Inventor-like viewers http://www-conf.kek.jp/acat03/prog/presen/id0113.ppt
• C++ GUI Programming with Qt3 http://phptr.com/content/images/0131240722/downloads/blanchette_book.pdf