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Install VXL

Fri, 2010-10-15 16:28 — mrestrep@brown.edu

For up-to-date info and explanation, please refer to the VXL website

Install VXL on Windows

  1. Install Microsoft Visual Studio C++
  2. Download and install TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org
  3. Download and install CMake from http://www.cmake.org/
  4. Check out the latest version of VXL using Tortoise SVN
    • Create a folder for the VXL project. We will use "d:\vxl" from now on.
    • Create a folder "d:\vxl\vxl"
    • cd d:\vxl\vxl
    • Right-click inside d:\vxl\vxl, choose "SVN Checkout"
      • In the "URL of repository" box, type in: "https://vxl.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vxl/trunk"
      • In the "Checkout directory" box, the text should already be "d:\vxl\vxl"
      • In the "Checkout depth", choose "Fully recursive"
      • In the "Revision" box, choose "Head revision"
      • Click OK
      • Tortoise SVN should now download the souce code. You should see a whole lot of "Added D:\vxl\vxl\..."
  5. Prepare Microsoft Visual Studio Solution for VXL souce code using CMake
    • Create a folder "d:\vxl\bin"
    • Open CMake program (from Start menu)
    • In the "Where is the source" box, browse to "d:\vxl\vxl"
    • In the "Where to build the binaries" box, browse to "d:\vxl\bin"
    • Click "Configure" (in bottom left of the window)
    • A window will show up, asking for the type of compiler. Choose the version of "Visual Studio" you're using. Stay away from "Win64" option for now.
    • CMake will run a whole bunch of tests to determine the settings of the machine, compilers, packages, etc. The progress is shown in bottom of the window. This may take up to several minutes.
    • Once this is done, a window shows up, with a lot of red rows.
    • Scroll to find "BUI_VGUI". Turn in ON. Click "Configure" again.
    • Scroll to find "VGUI_USE_MFC" (should be in red). Turn in ON. Click Configure. If you can't find this option, that means Microsoft Visual Studio was not installed properly. Ask someone.
    • Click "OK". CMake will now make all the "Projects" and "Solution" files for Microsoft Visual Studio.
    • CMake will close itself after this is done.
  6. Compile VXL code
    • Go to "d:\vxl\bin"
    • Double-click on "vxl.sln". This will open Microsoft Visual Studio
    • From top menu, View --> Solution Explorer.
    • Right-click on "ALL_BUILD", click on "build". This will build ALL projects in VXL. You can selectively build individual projects by right-click and "build" that project.
    • This process can take a while, up to a couple hours, depending on how fast the machine is.
    • After this is done, VXL is ready to use.

Install VXL on Mac OS X (unix make files)

  1. Download and install Xcode (with unix development tools). Xcode is available for download from Apple
  2. Download and install CMake from http://www.cmake.org/
  3. Check out the latest version of VXL using svn (subversion version control).
    • Create a directory for the VXL project. e.g. /projects/vxl
    • Open the terminal and cd to you vxl project directory. e.g cd /projects/vxl
    • Checkout the code into a new folder under the vxl-directory. e.g. /projects/vxl/src. For developers, do so by typing in the terminal:
       svn co https://vxl.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vxl/trunk scr

      If you are not a developer, you can checkout the code anonymously by replacing https to http, i.e.

      svn co http://vxl.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vxl/trunk src

      Checking out the code will take some time, at the end you should have a new directory containing the source code. e.g /projects/vxl/src

  4. Build the binaries(using unix make files)
    • Create a directory for your release and debug binaries under the vxl-project. e.g /projects/vxl/bin/Release, /projects/vxl/bin/Debug. This will keep the configurations separate
    • Open Cmake GUI (you could alternatively use cmake through command line)
    • Fill the path for source code e.g /projects/vxl/src
    • Fill the path for binaries e.g. /projects/vxl/bin/Debug
    • Press configure. It will ask you what type of binaries to build. Select Unix Make files.
    • At this point, you can "turn on" different projects of VXL. Make sure you select "Advanced View". Search for the variable CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE and make sure it matches the current configuration, e.g Debug. We will try to keep things simple, so stay with the defaults, that is just press configure, until it is done asking you questions. When CMake is done showing variables in red, it will highlight the generate button.
    • Press generate, if no errors occur, the unix make files will be generated in your binaries directory.
    • Build the binaries, by going into the terminal, cd into your just configured binaries e.g. /projects/vxl/bin/Debug, then in the terminal type:
      make -j2 -k

      The -j flag is to distrubute jobs, so if you have 8 cores you could use -j8. The -k keeps building after errors. Building will take time, at the end revise errors and look for built libraries and executables. Note that if you don't see a library built, it could be that not all necessary fields were set when configuring in CMake

Install VXL on Linux  (unix make files)

  1. Make sure you have the following installed:
    • GNU C and C++ compiler. 
    • Subversion
    • Make
  2. Download and install CMake. The latest version is available from http://www.cmake.org/. There are binaries available for some linux distributions; alternatively you can download the source code and follow instructions on the README file to build and install. If you are building from source, you may also want to build the CMake-gui, to do so run in the terminal
     ./bootstrap -qt-gui; make; make install

    . You will need qt, for the gui to work. For details, type

     ./bootstrap --help
  3. Check out the latest version of VXL using svn (subversion version control).
    • Create a directory for the VXL project. e.g. /projects/vxl
    • Open the terminal and cd to you vxl project directory. e.g cd /projects/vxl
    • Checkout the code into a new folder under the vxl-directory. e.g. /projects/vxl/src. For developers, do so by typing in the terminal: svn co https://vxl.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vxl/trunk scr. If you are not a developer, you can checkout the code anonymously by replacing https to http, i.e. svn co http://vxl.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vxl/trunk src. Checking out the code will take some time, at the end you should have a new directory containing the source code. e.g /projects/vxl/src
  4. Build the binaries(using unix make files)
    • Create a directory for your release and debug binaries under the vxl-project. e.g /projects/vxl/bin/Release, /projects/vxl/bin/Debug. This will keep the configurations separate
    • Open Cmake GUI (you could alternatively use cmake through command line)
    • Fill the path for source code e.g /projects/vxl/src
    • Fill the path for binaries e.g. /projects/vxl/bin/Debug
    • Press configure. It will ask you what type of binaries to build. Select Unix Make files.
    • At this point, you can "turn on" different projects of VXL. Make sure you select "Advanced View". Search for the variable CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE and make sure it matches the current configuration, e.g Debug. We will try to keep things simple, so stay with the defaults, that is just press configure, until it is done asking you questions. When CMake is done showing variables in red, it will highlight the generate button.
    • Press generate, if no errors occur, the unix make files will be generated in your binaries directory.
    • Build the binaries, by going into the terminal, cd into your just configured binaries e.g. /projects/vxl/bin/Debug, then in the terminal type:
      make -j2 -k

      The -j flag is to distrubute jobs, so if you have 8 cores you could use -j8. The -k keeps building after errors. Building will take time, at the end revise errors and look for built libraries and executables. Note that if you don't see a library built, it could be that not all necessary fields were set when configuring in CMake