The Ultrasound Raw data eXchange file format is a structure of data to store ultrasound acquisition.

You may use it with various languages (C++, Python and MATLAB).

Get more informations in the Wiki about class diagram.

• Common installation and usage in C++, MATLAB, Python.
• Build it yourself for C++, MATLAB, Python with CMake.

There is no installer for C++ user. You need to build it yourself. If you don't need to read / write file, urx library is header-only.

All CMake files will be installed in INSTALL_PATH/lib/cmake/Urx-XXXYYY/ with:

• XXX: the version of the Urx library (i.e. 1.0.2),
• YYY: empty if library has been built in shared mode, _static if library is static.

First, you need to get Urx package with find_package. If package is not found, set Urx_DIR=INSTALL_PATH/lib/cmake/Urx-XXXYYY.

find_package(Urx REQUIRED)

You will have access to targets:

• Urx::Urx: header-only library of the urx struct.
• Urx::UrxUtils: library with helper to manipulate urx struct, including read / write in hdf5 file format.

add_executable(UrxTestIo ${SRCS_FILES})
target_link_libraries(
  UrxTestIo PRIVATE Urx::Urx Urx::UrxUtils ${HDF5_CXX_LIBRARIES})

Urx::UrxUtils is only needed if you use helpers. If you only need the urx file format, only Urx::Urx is needed.

HDF5_CXX_LIBRARIES is only needed if the library has been built with HDF5 support.

You may found a complete example of CMakeLists.txt in test/urx or in test/io folders.

All files will be installed in :

• INSTALL_PATH/include/Urx-XXXYYY/ (headers),
• INSTALL_PATH/lib (dynamic libraries for Linux and static libraries for all operating system),
• INSTALL_PATH/bin (dynamic libraries for Windows and executables for all operating system).

All dynamic memory allocation should be stored in a shared_ptr.

#include <memory>

#include <urx/dataset.h>
#include <urx/probe.h>
#include <urx/utils/io/reader.h>
#include <urx/utils/io/writer.h>

auto dataset = std::make_shared<urx::Dataset>();

auto probe = std::make_shared<urx::Probe>();
probe->description = "Probe 1";
dataset->acquisition.probes.push_back(probe);

urx::utils::io::writer::saveToFile("file.urx", *dataset);

auto dataset_loaded = urx::utils::io::reader::loadFromFile("file.urx");

You may found an example for all C++ classes in file urx/utils/io/test/io.h in function generateFakeDataset.

Urx MATLAB homepage is hosted in MATLAB File Exchange but binaries are hosted in Github releases. Be sure to click on Show all 25 assets, download your toolbox (urx-X.Y.Z-linux-amd64.mltbx for Linux or urx-X.Y.Z-win-amd64.mltbx for Windows) then open the toolbox with MATLAB.

MATLAB needs a C compiler to load the C library in Urx toolbox.

If you have an error like MATLAB:mex:NoCompilerFound_link_Win64 / No supported compiler was found / Output from preprocessor is:'cl' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file., run mex -setup c -v and mex -setup c++ -v.

... Looking for compiler 'Intel Parallel Studio XE 2015 for C++ with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'ICPP_COMPILER15' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Intel Parallel Studio XE 2015 for C++ with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015'.
... Looking for compiler 'Intel Parallel Studio XE 2016 for C++ with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'ICPP_COMPILER16' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Intel Parallel Studio XE 2016 for C++ with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015'.
... Looking for compiler 'Intel Parallel Studio XE 2017 for C++ with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'ICPP_COMPILER17' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Intel Parallel Studio XE 2017 for C++ with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015'.
... Looking for compiler 'Intel Parallel Studio XE 2017 for C++ with Microsoft Visual Studio 2017' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'ICPP_COMPILER17' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Intel Parallel Studio XE 2017 for C++ with Microsoft Visual Studio 2017'.
... Looking for compiler 'Intel Parallel Studio XE 2018 for C++ with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'ICPP_COMPILER18' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Intel Parallel Studio XE 2018 for C++ with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015'.
... Looking for compiler 'Intel Parallel Studio XE 2018 for C++ with Microsoft Visual Studio 2017' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'ICPP_COMPILER18' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Intel Parallel Studio XE 2018 for C++ with Microsoft Visual Studio 2017'.
... Looking for compiler 'MinGW64 Compiler (C++)' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'MW_MINGW64_LOC' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'MinGW64 Compiler (C++)'.
... Looking for compiler 'MinGW64 Compiler with Windows 10 SDK or later (C++)' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'MW_MINGW64_LOC' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'MinGW64 Compiler with Windows 10 SDK or later (C++)'.
... Looking for compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2013' ...
... Looking for registry setting 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 12.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 12.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 12.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKCU\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 12.0 ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2013'.
... Looking for compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2015' ...
... Looking for registry setting 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VC7' 14.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VC7' 14.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VC7' 14.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKCU\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VC7' 14.0 ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2015'.
... Looking for compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2017' ...
... Looking for registry setting 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 15.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 15.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 15.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKCU\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 15.0 ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2017'.
... Looking for compiler 'MinGW64 Compiler (C++)' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'MW_MINGW64_LOC' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'MinGW64 Compiler (C++)'.
Error using mex
No supported compiler was found. You can install the freely
available MinGW-w64 C/C++ compiler; see Install MinGW-w64
Compiler. For more options, visit
https://www.mathworks.com/support/compilers.

If you want to use a free compiler, follow the next steps:

• Download MinGW-w64 from https://www.mingw-w64.org/downloads. You may use LLVM-MinGW at Github https://github.com/mstorsjo/llvm-mingw/releases and get the latest release from the file llvm-mingw-YYYYMMDD-msvcrt-x86_64.zip.
• Extract it and install it on c:\llvm-mingw-YYYYMMDD-msvcrt-x86_64 (path c:\llvm-mingw-YYYYMMDD-msvcrt-x86_64\bin must exist) or anywhere but don't use path with space inside.
• In MATLAB, run:

setenv('MW_MINGW64_LOC', 'C:/llvm-mingw-YYYYMMDD-msvcrt-x86_64')
mex -setup c -v
mex -setup c++ -v

Check you have a message Found installed compiler 'MinGW64 Compiler (C++)'..

All MATLAB files will be installed in C:\Users\CURRENT_USER\AppData\Roaming\MathWorks\MATLAB Add-Ons\Toolboxes\urx :

• +urx (all MATLAB script),
• include (C++ header, needed to get symbols in C++ library),
• UrxMatlabBinding.dll (main C++ library).

If you are using Urx from MATLAB toolbox, you just have to enable Unicode if you need it (feature('DefaultCharacterSet','UTF-8');).

If you want to enable logging, set URX_DEBUG environment variable to:

• COUT to display message to the standard output or,
• the filename where you want to store log messages.

If you built Urx from source, before using Urx in MATLAB, you first need to:

• allow utf-8 caracters,
• load the urx library.

addpath([pwd 'INSTALL_PATH/share/Urx-XXXYYY/matlab']);
feature('DefaultCharacterSet','UTF-8');
urx.LibBinding.getInstance([path to libUrxMatlabBinding.so], [path to INSTALL_PATH/include/Urx-XXXYYY/urx/matlab/bindings.h], {[path to INSTALL_PATH/include/Urx-XXXYYY]}, {});

⚠ When invoking urx.LibBinding.getInstance the first time, environment variable HDF5_DISABLE_VERSION_CHECK is set. MATLAB have it's own version of HDF5 library. Under Linux it will conflict with the one from Urx.

If you try to use urx.saveToFile(...) or urx.loadFromFile(...) without setting HDF5_DISABLE_VERSION_CHECK, MATLAB will crash with error: Headers are 1.8.23, library is 1.8.12.

Warning! ***HDF5 library version mismatched error***
The HDF5 header files used to compile this application do not match
the version used by the HDF5 library to which this application is linked.
Data corruption or segmentation faults may occur if the application continues.
This can happen when an application was compiled by one version of HDF5 but
linked with a different version of static or shared HDF5 library.
You should recompile the application or check your shared library related
settings such as 'LD_LIBRARY_PATH'.
'HDF5_DISABLE_VERSION_CHECK' environment variable is set to 1, application will
continue at your own risk.
Headers are 1.8.23, library is 1.8.12
      SUMMARY OF THE HDF5 CONFIGURATION
      =================================
General Information:
-------------------
  	   HDF5 Version: 1.8.12
  	  Configured on: Mon May 10 15:29:10 EDT 2021
  	  Configured by: batserve@bat1062601glnxa64 at The MathWorks, Inc., Natick, MA 01760
  	 Configure mode: production
  	    Host system: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
        Uname information: Linux bat1062601glnxa64 4.19.0-13-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.160-2 (2020-11-28) x86_64 GNU/Linux
  	       Byte sex: little-endian
  	      Libraries: shared
       Installation point: /mathworks/devel/bat/B3p3/build/3p/install/7215999/glnxa64/hdf5-1.8
Compiling Options:
------------------
             Compilation Mode: production
                   C Compiler: /mathworks/hub/3rdparty/internal/3349624/glnxa64/gcc-6.3.0/bin/gcc ( gcc (MW GCC 6.3.0-GLIBC2.12-gold) 6.3.0)
                       CFLAGS: -O2 -pipe -pthread -fdebug-prefix-map=/mathworks/devel/bat/B3p3/build= -fPIC 
                    H5_CFLAGS:   -ansi -pedantic -Wall -W -Wundef -Wshadow -Wpointer-arith -Wbad-function-cast -Wcast-qual -Wcast-align -Wwrite-strings -Wconversion -Waggregate-return -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations -Wredundant-decls -Wnested-externs -Winline -O -fomit-frame-pointer -finline-functions
                    AM_CFLAGS: 
                     CPPFLAGS: 
                  H5_CPPFLAGS: -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=199506L   -DNDEBUG -UH5_DEBUG_API
                  AM_CPPFLAGS: -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_BSD_SOURCE 
             Shared C Library: yes
             Static C Library: no
Statically Linked Executables: no
                      LDFLAGS: -Wl,--as-needed -fuse-ld=gold -Wl,--disable-new-dtags -Wl,--hash-style=both -Wl,--version-script=/mathworks/devel/bat/B3p3/build/3p/sources/hdf5-1.8//hdf5_linux_exported_symbol.map
                   H5_LDFLAGS: 
                   AM_LDFLAGS: 
   	Extra libraries:  -lz -ldl -lm 
  	       Archiver: ar
  	 	 Ranlib: ranlib
        Debugged Packages: 
  	    API Tracing: no
Languages:
----------
                      Fortran: no
                          C++: no
Features:
---------
                Parallel HDF5: no
           High Level library: yes
                 Threadsafety: no
          Default API Mapping: v18
With Deprecated Public Symbols: yes
       I/O filters (external): deflate(zlib)
       I/O filters (internal): shuffle,fletcher32,nbit,scaleoffset
                          MPE: no
                   Direct VFD: no
                      dmalloc: no
Clear file buffers before write: yes
         Using memory checker: no
       Function Stack Tracing: no
                         GPFS: no
    Strict File Format Checks: no
 Optimization Instrumentation: no
     Large File Support (LFS): yes

Urx must use the same version (at least major / minor number) than the one from MATLAB (here 1.8).

Why is there a problem? Under Linux, the same symbol from two differents libraries are merged. So you can't know which one will be used. By setting HDF5_DISABLE_VERSION_CHECK to 1, you are disabling version check. Under Windows, the operating system keeps symbols from different libraries separate.

dataset = urx.Dataset();

probe1 = urx.Probe();
probe1.description = 'Probe 1';
dataset.acquisition.excitations = [excitation1];

urx.saveToFile('test.urx', dataset);

dataset2 = urx.loadFromFile('test.urx');

You may found a complete example in file test/matlab/+urx/+UnitTests/FileFromScratch.m.

Some field are optional or can be empty (see C++ UML diagram). If you want to unassign a value, don't use [] but use empty method of the class (i.e. urx.ElementGeometry.empty).

Urx MATLAB homepage is hosted in Pypi. Binaries are hosted in Pypi and Github releases. Be sure to click on Show all 25 assets, download the wheel of your python version (i.e. ultrasound_rawdata_exchange-1.1.0-cp312-cp312-win32.whl) then run pip install ultrasound_rawdata_exchange-1.1.0-cp312-cp312-win32.whl.

import ultrasound_rawdata_exchange as urx;

dataset = urx.Dataset()

probe1 = urx.Probe()
probe1.description = 'Probe 1'
dataset.acquisition.excitations = [excitation1]

urx.saveToFile('test.urx', dataset)

dataset2 = urx.loadFromFile('test.urx')

You may found a basic example in folder test/python.

You can use CMake to build urx for C++ / MATLAB / Python user.

See .gitlab-ci.yml file for various examples.

Requirements:

• git,
• cmake v3.28 minimum,
• Python v3.8 minimum,

Under Windows, you need to explicitly set Visual Studio generator.

cmake.exe -S root_path -B CI -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64

Full example with git-bash console:

git clone https://github.com/moduleus/urx.git
cd urx
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git
vcpkg/bootstrap-vcpkg.bat
git clone https://github.com/moduleus/vcpkg-registry.git
cmake -S . -B build -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64 -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF -DVCPKG_TARGET_TRIPLET=x64-wsmep -DVCPKG_HOST_TRIPLET=x64-wsmep -DVCPKG_OVERLAY_TRIPLETS=vcpkg-registry/triplets -DWITH_PYTHON:BOOL=ON -DWITH_PYTHON_WHL:BOOL=ON -DWITH_HDF5:BOOL=ON -DWITH_MATLAB:BOOL=ON -DBUILD_TESTING:BOOL=OFF -DENABLE_PCH:BOOL=OFF -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=install
cmake --build build --config Release --parallel 4

cmake -S . -B CI

Full example:

git clone https://github.com/moduleus/urx.git
cd urx
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git
vcpkg/bootstrap-vcpkg.sh
git clone https://github.com/moduleus/vcpkg-registry.git
cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF -DVCPKG_TARGET_TRIPLET=x64-lsrp -DVCPKG_HOST_TRIPLET=x64-lsrp -DVCPKG_OVERLAY_TRIPLETS=vcpkg-registry/triplets -DWITH_PYTHON:BOOL=ON -DWITH_PYTHON_WHL:BOOL=ON -DWITH_HDF5:BOOL=ON -DWITH_MATLAB:BOOL=ON -DBUILD_TESTING:BOOL=OFF -DENABLE_PCH:BOOL=OFF -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=install
cmake --build build --parallel 4

• Install path

Set -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX= variable to define the installation path.

• Debug or Release

If you use a single build type generator (like Makefile in Linux), you need to set CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE to Debug or Release.

• Static or dynamic libraries

Set BUILD_SHARED_LIBS to OFF or ON.

Note that you should set BUILD_SHARED_LIBS to OFF if you want to build MATLAB or Python buiding.

Be sure to use a vcpkg triplet with the same shared / static link option. For example:

• Windows and static: x64-wsmep
• Windows and shared: x64-wdrep
• Linux and static: x64-lsrp
• Linux and shared: x64-ldr

• Use external 3rd party with vcpkg

vcpkg is a package manager. You first need to clone it with git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git.

Also, clone vcpkg-registry with git clone https://github.com/moduleus/vcpkg-registry.git.

Then pass the arguments below. ⚠ If you use cmake-gui, be sure to set these variables BEFORE running configure once. Otherwise, you need to reset cache.

Windows:

-DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE="vcpkg_path/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake"
-DVCPKG_TARGET_TRIPLET=x64-wsmep -DVCPKG_HOST_TRIPLET=x64-wsmep
-DVCPKG_OVERLAY_TRIPLETS=vcpkg-registry/triplets"

Linux with static libraries (make sure that BUILD_SHARED_LIBS is set to OFF).

-DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE="vcpkg_path/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake"
-DVCPKG_TARGET_TRIPLET=x64-linux -DVCPKG_HOST_TRIPLET=x64-linux
-DVCPKG_OVERLAY_TRIPLETS=vcpkg-registry/triplets

We provide various triplet with following syntax:

• w for Windows,
• l for Linux,
• d for Linux dynamic (will be static otherwise),
• sm for Windows static with /MD option (will be dynamic otherwise). See VCPKG_CRT_LINKAGE,
• e to pass environment variable for Windows. See VCPKG_ENV_PASSTHROUGH,
• p to pass Python3_EXECUTABLE to vcpkg via VCPKG_Python3_EXECUTABLE environment variable.

• Enable HDF5

This feature is needed to read / write urx structure to file.

Set WITH_HDF5 to OFF or ON.

• Enable Python binding

Set WITH_PYTHON to OFF or ON.

You can also set WITH_PYTHON_WHL to ON if you want to generate wheel package without using pip wheel.

• Enable MATLAB binding

Set WITH_MATLAB to OFF or ON.

You don't need to have MATLAB installed on your computer to build the MATLAB binding.

• Build with Clang

You need to set lots of CMake variables and use CMake 3.29 if you want to use CMAKE_LINKER_TYPE variable.

-DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=/usr/bin/clang-17
-DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/usr/bin/clang++-17
-DCMAKE_AR=/usr/bin/llvm-ar-17
-DCMAKE_AS=/usr/bin/llvm-as-17
-DCMAKE_RANLIB=/usr/bin/llvm-ranlib-17
-DCMAKE_LINKER_TYPE=LLD

You may found various command to build Urx in file .gitlab-ci.yml.

You may generate wheel archive by launching pip wheel . from the root directory of the project.

The setup.py file support the following options:

• CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE to set vcpkg path (repository cloned if option is not given),
• cmake_build_type to set CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE in CMake (Release by default),
• vcpkg_triplet to set vcpkg triplet (guessed if omited),

You can also set CMake variable with -DVARIABLE=VALUE.

Example:

python.exe -m pip install .
--config-settings="--global-option=CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=vcpkg_path/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake"
--config-settings="--global-option=cmake_build_type=RelWithDebInfo"
--config-settings="--global-option=vcpkg_triplet=x64-wsmrep"
--config-settings="--global-option=-DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF"
--config-settings="--global-option=-DWITH_HDF5=ON"
-v

See build:windows-python and build:ubuntu-python in .gitlab-ci.yml file for real examples.

If you want to disable vcpkg and use you own 3rd party library (that you already built), you can set DISABLE_VCPKG to ON and set all XXX_DIR CMake variable (path of the CMake files of the 3rd party).

See CMake target UrxPythonWheel in python/CMakeLists.txt file for real example.