Simple Filters do not work in all installations

[dzenanz]

Summary

Trying to run any filter from Simple Filters results in an error:

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Exception before execution of AbsImageFilter
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<class 'RuntimeError'>
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OK   
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content in the log:

myFilter = AbsImageFilter()
myFilter.SetDebug(False)
myFilter.SetNumberOfThreads(24)
myFilter.SetNumberOfWorkUnits(0)
Error ImageIO factory did not return an ImageIOBase: MRMLIDImageIO

Steps to reproduce

1. Download MRHead sample data
2. Switch to Simple Filters module
3. Click Apply
4. The above error appears

Environment

• Error appears for me in Slicer 5.6.1 r32438 / 117ce5f on Windows 11 (23H2 build 22631.3296) fully updated
• Works as expected in versions 5.2.1 r31317 / 77da381 and 5.7.0-2024-03-06 r32752 / 024b340 on the same Windows machine
• Works as expected in Slicer 5.6.1 r32438 / 117ce5f on Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS.
• Error appears in Slicer 5.6.1 r32438 / 117ce5f on Ubuntu for @andinet.

[lassoan]

This error is typically due to that you (or any of the extensions you installed) installed SimpleITK from PyPI and that overwrote Slicer's SimpleITK. SimpleITK installed from PyPI does not include the in-memory transfer image IO.

We have been avoiding reinstaing SimpleITK and if there is a package then insists on replacing it (e.g., nnunetv2) then we rewrite package dependencies on-the-fly (see TotalSegmentator Slicer extension).

Would it be sufficient to check the SimpleITK version at startup and display a descriptive error message if it is not correct, to make extension developers aware that they broke some features Slicer?

[dzenanz]

check the SimpleITK version ar startup and display a descriptive error message

I think that would be sufficient. The possible culprit (in this instance) is https://github.com/bowang-lab/MedSAMSlicer or https://github.com/bingogome/samm.