First of all, make sure that you have a user package defined as described in Section 8.2, “Creating a User Package for Your Project” or create it now.

Then run the Project Wizard and select the link ML Module. This starts the Wizard for C++/ML Modules. Enter the following:

Click Next to proceed.

Figure 13.1. Entering the ML Module Properties

On the dialog Imaging Module Properties, the inputs and outputs as well as possible sample code can be added to the ML module.

Figure 13.2. Entering the Imaging Module Properties

Select the Module Type Classic ML Module. For information on the differences, see the MeVisLab Reference Manual, chapter “ML Wizard”.

Enter the following settings:

On the dialog Additional Module Properties, the inputs and outputs as well as possible sample code can be added to the ML module.

Figure 13.3. Additional Module Properties

Make the following settings:

On the dialog Module Field Interface, the fields of the module can be defined (more fields can be added later but this is the easiest way to add fields).

Figure 13.4. Entering the ML Module Properties — Fields

Click New to create a new field, then enter the following:

Click Create to create the module.

In the default file browser of your system, two folders are opened:

	Note
	For a full list of all created files and their contents, refer to the MeVisLab Reference Manual, chapter “ML Module — Created Files”.

For optimizing the GUI of the module — that is the panel — open the .def file. You can do that in two ways:

Add the line step = 100 to the definition of the field constantValue in order to adjust the constant value conveniently. (Smaller steps are barely visible in the output.)

Window {
  Vertical {
    Field constantValue {
      tooltip = "This constant value is added to each voxel."
      step = 100   // big change for big effect          
    }
  }
}

Reload the module definition by right-clicking the module and selecting Reload Definition from the context menu. This will only reload the GUI definition, not the module DLL.

To check if everything worked, double-click the module to open the panel and test

Congratulations, you have now implemented your first page-based and demand-driven ML image processing module!

As last step, we will create a little example network.

Load the example network of the module via File → Open. Its name is automatically constructed as <ModuleName>Example.mlab. So far, the example network only includes the module itself.

Add two modules to the network, namely LocalImage and View2D. Connect the image input to the bottom connector and the image output to the top connector of SimpleAdd.

Double-click SimpleAdd to open its panel and View2D to open the viewer. When you now change the steps, the image display changes.

Figure 13.8. Example Network for SimpleAdd

To create the help, right-click the new module and select Create Help from the context menu. The default HTML editor (as set in the MeVisLab Preferences) opens and displays a template HTML file. Add the module-specific contents and save them.

Now the module is ready for usage.