extensions/RaDe-GS/SIBR_viewers/docs/pages/4_Architecture.dox

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 * Copyright (C) 2020, Inria
 * GRAPHDECO research group, https://team.inria.fr/graphdeco
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 * This software is free for non-commercial, research and evaluation use 
 * under the terms of the LICENSE.md file.
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/*!
@page architecture Architecture

This is a diagram describing the overall SIBR architecture:
@image html sibr_new_architecture.png "Architecture Diagram" width=700px

SIBR is built using layers.

@section Core

SIBR core module exposes internal libraries (system, graphics, assets, scene, raycaster, imgproc, view, renderer, video) which can be used to implement multiple IBR algorithms.

@subsection system
At the very low level, we have **core/system** that contains OS tools (e.g. filesystems), mathematical tools (e.g. vector operations), and standard tools (e.g. string operations). It also contains a configuration file (Config.hpp) that defines many useful macros/const.

In short:
- we use STL and C++11 (std::shared_ptr are heavily used)
- we use Boost Libraries to manage filesystems.
- we use Eigen for math tools. (Dev tips: Please use sibr::Vector<NumComp, Type> (e.g. sibr::Vector3f), because they define important flags.)

@subsection graphics
Next we expose **core/graphics** which contains graphics tools, such as images, meshes, textures, rendertargets, shaders,... We use OpenCV for managing images and image operations. Note that we wrapped OpenCV's cv::Mat in sibr::Image to control/check types statically. See sibr::Image class for details.

@subsection assets
The classes contained in **core/assets** represent basic resource files present in IBR datasets. These classes are useful for loading and reading different types of files found in a typical dataset.

@subsection scene
**core/scene** contains a full IBR dataset representation and storage, based on multiple components that form a "scene". A good example is sibr::BasicIBRScene, containing a default set of assets (cameras, images, proxies etc.) which can be initialized by means of a scene metadata file.

@subsection raycaster
The **core/raycaster** library provides raycasting and intersection test utilities, wrapping Intel Embree for fast ray/triangle tests.

@subsection imgproc
Basic image processing utilities cam be found in **core/imgproc**. For more complex tasks, you can use OpenCV algorithms as our Images are backed by OpenCV matrices.

@subsection video
You can load and save videos using the **core/video** module. It internally relies on ffmpeg.

@subsection view
The **core/view** library exposes tools for making viewer apps for live rendering and debugging of the algorithms. It define a basic view interface along with interactive camera modes, a multi-window management system,...

@subsection renderer
The classes in **core/renderer** library implements general rendering passes and functionalities required for many IBR applications. usually, when designing a View for a custom rendering algorithm, you will use multiple renderers, some customs and some out-of-the-box.

 */