Brayns
One of the keys towards understanding how the brain works as a whole is visualisation of how the individual cells function. In particular, the more morphologically accurate the visualisation can be, the easier it is for experts in the biological field to validate cell structures; photo-realistic rendering is therefore important.
The Blue Brain Project has made major efforts to create morphologically accurate neurons to simulate sub-cellular and electrical activities, e.g. molecular simulations of neuron biochemistry or multi-scale simulations of neuronal function. Ray-tracing can help to highlight areas of the circuits where cells touch each other and where synapses are being created. In combination with ‘global illumination’, which uses light, shadow, and depth of field effects to simulate photo-realistic images, this technique makes it easier to visualise how the neurons function.
Brayns is a minimalistic visualiser that can perform ray-traced rendering of neurons. It provides an abstraction of the underlying rendering engines, so that the best possible acceleration libraries can be used for the relevant hardware. (https://github.com/BlueBrain/Brayns.git).
To keep track of the changes between releases check the changelog.
Contact: [email protected]
Architecture
User guide
Command line arguments are documented in the User Guide.
About
The following platforms and build environments are tested:
- Linux: Ubuntu 16.04, Debian 9, RHEL 7 (Makefile, x64)
Using Docker images
Start Brayns as a service
docker run -ti --rm -p 8200:8200 bluebrain/brayns
More documentation is available on DockerHub: https://hub.docker.com/r/bluebrain/brayns/
Start the Brayns web UI
docker run -ti --rm -p 8080:8080 bluebrain/brayns-ui
More documentation is available on DockerHub: https://hub.docker.com/r/bluebrain/brayns-ui/
Building from Source
Ubuntu 18.04
To install all dependencies needed by Brayns on Ubuntu 18.04 run:
sudo apt install git cmake g++ libtbb-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libxrandr-dev \
libxinerama-dev libxcursor-dev libboost-all-dev libfreeimage-dev libglew-dev \
libwebsockets-dev libturbojpeg libturbojpeg0-dev libassimp-dev libhdf5-dev
Prerequisites
In order to ease the application compilation process, we recommend using the following tree structure:
- src
+- ispc-v1.10.0-linux
+- OSPRay
+- Brayns
Intel ISPC compiler
Download and extract ISPC compiler 1.10.0 archive.
Embree
Clone embree in the same folder level as ISPC compiler
git clone https://github.com/embree/embree.git
mkdir embree/Build
cd embree/Build
git checkout v3.5.2
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<Brayns_installation_folder>
make install
OSPRay
Clone OSPRay in the same folder level as ISPC compiler
git clone https://github.com/ospray/OSPRay.git
mkdir OSPRay/Build
cd OSPRay/Build
git checkout v1.8.5
export CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<Brayns_installation_folder>
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<Brayns_installation_folder>
make install
Brayns
git clone --recursive https://github.com/BlueBrain/Brayns.git
mkdir Brayns/Build
cd Brayns/Build
cmake .. -DCLONE_SUBPROJECTS=ON -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<Brayns_installation_folder>
make install
A number of dependencies are optional, and are related to some specific Brayns features:
Enable/Disable OptiX
cmake .. -DOptiX_INSTALL_DIR=<OptiX_installation_folder> -DBRAYNS_OPTIX_ENABLED=On
Enable/Disable assimp supported mesh file loader (.obj, .ply, etc.)
cmake .. -DBRAYNS_ASSIMP_ENABLED=ON:OFF
Enable/Disable Brion supported morphology file loader (.h5, .swc, BlueConfig, CircuitConfig)
cmake .. -DBRAYNS_CIRCUITVIEWER_ENABLED=ON:OFF
Enable/Disable Deflect for streaming to Tide, the Tiled Interactive DisplayWall environment.
cmake .. -DBRAYNS_DEFLECT_ENABLED=ON:OFF
Enable/Disable HTTP/REST/Websockets interface.
LibJpegTurbo and Rockets. See documentation for REST API details.
cmake .. -DBRAYNS_NETWORKING_ENABLED=ON:OFF
Enable/Disable VRPN tracking plugin.
cmake .. -DBRAYNS_VRPN_ENABLED=ON:OFF
Enable/Disable optional OSPRay modules.
cmake .. -DBRAYNS_OPTIX_ENABLED=ON:OFF
cmake .. -DBRAYNS_OPENDECK_ENABLED=ON:OFF
Running Brayns viewer
export PATH=<Brayns_installation_folder>/bin:$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=<Brayns_installation_folder>/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
braynsViewer
Running Brayns off-screen service
export PATH=<Brayns_installation_folder>/bin:$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=<Brayns_installation_folder>/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
braynsService
Known Bugs
Please file a Bug Report if you find new issues which have not already been reported in Bug Report page. If you find an already reported problem, please update the corresponding issue with your inputs and outputs.