# Creating a 3D Slicer extension with minimal programming skills

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/creating-a-3d-slicer-extension-with-minimal-programming-skills/17208>\
**Category:** Support\
**Tags:** segmentation, extensions-manager, python\
**Created:** [April 20, 2021, 1:34pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/creating-a-3d-slicer-extension-with-minimal-programming-skills/17208 "2021-04-20T13:34:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 7

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**Author:** ![lassoan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lassoan/32/13_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2021, 11:06pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/creating-a-3d-slicer-extension-with-minimal-programming-skills/17208/7 "2021-04-20T23:06:36Z")

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I think there are two main approaches that you may try:

- A. Try to develop a module in Slicer and learn everything at once along the way.
- B. First learn most important technologies that Slicer is built on and once you are familiar with those then learn how to use them in Slicer.

It is up to you which works better for you.

If you choose option A, then you’ll get lost but you can ask specific questions here from time to time when you cannot figure out something yourself. The advantage of this method is that you don’t spend your time with working on some toy examples, but you are starting to go towards reaching your goal on day 1.

For option B, I could recommend materials listed in this post:

> [@A free biomedical image analysis and visualization 2-day course](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/a-free-biomedical-image-analysis-and-visualization-2-day-course/2584/10):
>
> Participating at a 2-day course in person is a great learning opportunity. However, if you cannot make it, then there is online training material already available that should keep you busy for about a year: Read the [VTK textbook](https://www.vtk.org/vtk-textbook/), cover to cover, 2-3 times (I’m serious, read all of it; and read it several times, as in the first pass you’ll not have deep enough understanding to get all details); this is essential, don’t do anything else before you read the book completely at least once Skim thr…

We’ll have our yearly 3-day bootcamp event where we teach our new students about basics of using and programming 3D Slicer. This year it will be a virtual event and the application is open to anyone (but we may need to prioritize applications if we get too many). If you are interested you can find the link to apply [here](https://github.com/PerkLab/PerkLabBootcamp/blob/master/README.md#perklab-bootcamp).

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