aXis2000 - IDL Virtual Machine version

INSTRUCTIONS FOR INSTALLING A VIRTUAL MACHINE VERSION OF aXis2000

Last changed: 15 Sep 2018

1. Download and install IDL for your computer (if you do not have it already installed on your computer)

NB as of Sep 2018, the owner of IDL is Harris Geospatial
http://www.harrisgeospatial.com

You need to register and then you can access the download page from
http://www.harrisgeospatial.com/MyAccount/Downloads.aspx

You should download all of IDL and install following the instructions supplied by Harris Geospatial.

2. Download the appropriate aXis2000 package - see unicorn.mcmaster.ca\aXis2000.html

3. Extract (unzip) all contents to c:\aXis2000 (Windows) or /Users/aXis2000 (Mac OS X)
(Make sure 'Use folder names' is turned on when you unzip)
You must have all the source code files in the folder to make the Virtual Machine version work properly

Note: If you use a folder other than c:\aXis2000 or /Users/aXis2000 there may be problems running the code.

Do NOT use folder names with blanks in the folders
for the source code or your data !!!

A common problem is to put aXis2000 in 'My Documents' or in 'Program Files'
Note that both of those folder names contain a blank. You are warned.

4. set up a way to launch aXis2000

For MacIntosh (OS X) - please follow the instructions at the link

for Windows machines

5. make a desktop icon for IDL Virtual Machine
          right click on desktop, click on 'New', then 'shortcut' and the use the browse button to find the idlrt.exe file
          - for IDL versions before 7.0 this will be "C:\RSI\IDLxx\bin\bin.x86\idlrt.exe" where xx is the IDL version (e.g.63 = 6.3)
          - for IDL versions later than 7.0 this will be "C:\Program Files\ITT\IDLxx\bin\bin.x86\idlrt.exe where xx is the IDL version (e.g.71 = 7.1)
          - for IDL versions later than 8.0 on a windows 8.1 (64-bits), this will be "C:\Program Files\Exelis\IDLXX\bin\bin.x86_64\idlrt.exe", where XX is the IDL version (e.g. 8.3)

6. Change the properties of that Desktop icon to the following:
      target: "CODE-SOURCE" -vm= "c:\axis2000\aXis2000.sav"     where     "CODE-SOURCE" = "C:\Program Files\ITT\IDLxx\bin\bin.x86\idlrt.exe"
      start in: C:\axis2000
       icon is: C:\axis2000\aXis2000.ico
      where "C:\Program Files\ITT\IDLxx\bin\bin.x86\idlrt.exe" is the path to the IDL virtual machine program (idlrt.exe)
                  C:\aXis2000 is the name of the folder which contains the aXis2000.sav and the aXis2000 code files

7. On many Windows operating systems (later versions of XP, Vista, Windows7; not encountered this problem with Windows 8 or Windows 10) , a DLL file needed for the VM version to execute is not provided so the IDL VM will not start. This file is called MSVCR70.dll. You can download it here. Put it in the c:windows\system32 folder.

CAUTION: a number of functions that work fine in the full version of IDL, do not work in the IDL Virtual machine execution of the compiled code (aXis2000.sav). There is a file called SAV-run-problems.txt in axis2000 folder which lists known problems. Let me know if you find others.