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Overview

Docker is an OS-level virtualization platform that allows running a guest operating system isolated from the host operating system. While our ROS application has been only tested on a Linux operating system, you can still run it by running a Linux OS on a Windows or Mac computer using Docker. This page outlines the steps to set up the Docker environment for the tutorial.

Installing Docker

Please follow Get Docker page.

Obtaininig Docker Image for the Tutorial

(Option 1) Pulling the Docker image via network

Once the Docker is setup on your computer, pull the image using the following command:

$ docker pull rosmed/docker-ubuntu-vnc-desktop-slicerros2-lw:ismr2023

Please note that this Docker image is a lightweight version and only contains a binary package of 3D Slicer. If you plan to use the Docker image for 3D Slicer module development, you will need a full Docker image with 3D Slicer build files, which can be obtained by:

$ docker pull rosmed/docker-ubuntu-vnc-desktop-slicerros2:ismr2023

(Option 2) Loading the Docker image from a file

If you have a Docker image as a compressed file, you can load it by using the following command:

$ docker load -i docker-ubuntu-vnc-desktop-slicerros2-lw-ismr2023.tar.gz

Starting Docker

To execute the docker image, run the following command:

$ docker run -it --rm -p 6080:80 rosmed/docker-ubuntu-vnc-desktop-slicerros2-lw:ismr2023

(in case of using the full Docker image, specify rosmed/docker-ubuntu-vnc-desktop-slicerros2:ismr2023 instead).

In this example, the HTTP port (port 80) on the docker container will be mapped to port 6080 on the host computer. The ‘–rm’ option will remove the container upon termination. If the Docker container is successfully started, its desktop environment can be accessed using a web browser by accessing http://localhost:6080.

If you are interested in how those Docker images were built, the details can be found in this page).