We implemented SimpleITK as an interface on top of ITK, built as a C++ library.

This
interface is then wrapped for a variety of targeted languages. The SimpleITK interface is
functionally complete and fully encapsulates ITK. In other words SimpleITK can be used
independently without any direct calls to ITK. This interface was designed from the
ground up to be easy to use and intuitive, as well as to take advantages of advanced
language features and convenience.

The goals for this project were high, and some of them seemed in conflict. The
challenges of presenting a procedural interface for the highly object oriented and
templated ITK library while still preserving robust support for multiple image
dimensions and pixel types was the essence of the problem in designing SimpleITK.
Based on our motivations and goals a number of choices were made.