7. Building Directly with CMake¶
If a config site file is available for the platform you wish to build on, VisIt can often be built without the use of the build_visit script, with these steps.
git clone --recursive git@github.com:visit-dav/visit.git
mkdir visit/build
cd visit/build
If build_visit was used to build VisIt on the platform in the past, it should have created a cmake file specific to your machine which we call a config site file.
CMake simply needs to be told where to find it using the -DVISIT_CONFIG_SITE option.
Examples of config site files for a variety of machines VisIt developers directly support can be found in the config-site directory.
/path/to/cmake ../src/ -DVISIT_CONFIG_SITE="/path/to/your_computer.cmake"
make -j
7.1. CMake Variables¶
The following CMake vars can be modified to suit your build needs.
When specified via a command-line invocation of CMake, they should be specified as: VARNAME:TYPE=value, eg ‘VISIT_BUILD_ALL_PLUGINS:BOOL=ON’.
The defaults listed are the settings used if the Variable has not been set in a config-site file.
7.1.1. Controlling major components being built¶
- VISIT_DBIO_ONLY : BOOL : OFF
- Toggles building of only visitconvert and engine plugins.
- VISIT_ENGINE_ONLY : BOOL : OFF
- Toggles building of only the compute engine and its plugins.
- VISIT_SERVER_COMPONENTS_ONLY : BOOL : OFF
- Build only vcl, mdserver, engine and their plugins.
- VISIT_ENABLE_LIBSIM : BOOL : ON
- Toggles building of libsim.
7.1.2. Controlling plugins being built¶
- VISIT_BUILD_ALL_PLUGINS : BOOL : OFF
Toggles the building of all plugins. When turned on the following optional plugins will be added to the build:
Database: PICS_Tester, Rect
Operator: Context ConnCompReduce, MetricThreshold, RemoveCells, SurfCompPrep
Plot: Topology
Note: the list of optional plugins is subject to change.
- VISIT_BUILD_MINIMAL_PLUGINS : BOOL : OFF
Toggles the building of a minimal set of database, operator, and plot plugins. When turned on, only the following plugins will be built:
Database: Curve2D, RAW, VTK, PICS_Tester
Operator: Lineout, Slice, Threshold
Plot: Curve, Mesh, Pseudocolor
Note: the list of minimal plugins is subject to change.
- VISIT_SELECTED_DATABASE_PLUGINS : STRING
‘;’ separated list of database plugins to build, eg: VTK;Silo
If not empty, will supersede the settings of VISIT_BUILD_MINIMAL_PLUGINS and VISIT_BUILD_ALL_PLUGINS for database plugins.- VISIT_SELECTED_OPERATOR_PLUGINS : STRING
‘;’ separated list of operator plugins to build, eg: Slice;Lineout;Transform
If not empty, will supersede the settings of VISIT_BUILD_MINIMAL_PLUGINS and VISIT_BUILD_ALL_PLUGINS for operator plugins.- VISIT_SELECTED_PLOT_PLUGINS : STRING
‘;’ separated list of plot plugins to build, eg: Mesh;Pseudocolor
If not empty, will supersede the settings of VISIT_BUILD_MINIMAL_PLUGINS and VISIT_BUILD_ALL_PLUGINS for plot plugins.
7.1.3. Controlling extra tools being built¶
- VISIT_ENABLE_ANNOTATION_TOOLS : BOOL : ON
- Toggles the generation of annotation tools: text2polys, time_annotation.
- VISIT_ENABLE_DATAGEN : BOOL: ON
- Toggles the generation of sample data files.
- VISIT_ENABLE_DATA_MANUAL_EXAMPLES: BOOL : OFF
- Toggles generation of Getting Data Into Visit examples.
- VISIT_ENABLE_DIAGNOSTICS : BOOL : ON
- Toggles building of diagnostic tools: exceptiontest, mpitest, networktest, osmesatest.
- VISIT_ENABLE_MANUALS : BOOL : ON
- Toggles building of manuals, requires Sphinx in Python.
- VISIT_ENABLE_SILO_TOOLS : BOOL : ON
- Toggles building of Silo tools: mrgtree2dot, add_visit_searchpath.
- VISIT_ENABLE_UNIT_TESTS : BOOL : ON
- Toggles building of unit tests: MRUCache, Namescheme, Utilty, StringHelpers, exprconfig, exprtest.
7.1.4. Useful for developers¶
- VISIT_CREATE_SOCKET_RELAY_EXECUTABLE: BOOL : ON
- Toggles creation of separate executable that forwards VisIt’s socket connection between engine and component launcher.
- VISIT_CREATE_XMLTOOLS_GEN_TARGETS : BOOL : ON
Toggles the creation of build targets to run xmltools code generation. More information can be found in the XML Tools section of the Developer Manual
Be careful on Windows, all of the codegen targets will be built unless you tell Visual Studio to build the ALL_BUILD project (instead of the Solution). This will cause a lot of source files to be regenerated and may cause problems with the build.
- VISIT_RPATH_RELATIVE_TO_EXECUTABLE_PATH : BOOL : OFF
- Install rpath relative to executable location using $ORIGIN tag.
- CMAKE_SUPPRESS_REGENERATION : BOOL : OFF
- When on, tells CMake to suppress regeneration of project/make files when CMakeLists.txt or .cmake files have changed.
7.1.5. Miscellany¶
- CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE : STRING : Release
- Specifies the build type for single-configuration generators (like Makefiles).
- CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX : PATH : default is system dependent
- Specifies the location for files installed with make install.
- IGNORE_THIRD_PARTY_LIB_PROBLEMS : BOOL : OFF
- Ignore problems finding requested third party libraries.
- VISIT_CONFIG_SITE : FILEPATH : ${VISIT_SOURCE_DIR}/config-site/<localhost>.cmake
- Location of a config-site cmake file that has settings to control the build, including locations of third-party libraries. Created automatically by build_visit script.
- VISIT_DDT : BOOL : OFF
- Toggles support for the DDT debugger.
- VISIT_DEFAULT_SILO_DRIVER : STRING : PDB
- Designates the default Silo driver to use when generating silo data. Options: PDB, HDF5
- VISIT_DISABLE_SELECT : BOOL : OFF
- Toggles the disablement for use of the select() function.
- VISIT_FORCE_SSH_TUNNELING : BOOL : OFF
- Toggles use of SSH tunneling for sockets.
- VISIT_FORTRAN : BOOL : OFF
- Toggles building of Fortran example programs.
- VISIT_INSTALL_THIRD_PARTY : BOOL : OFF
- Intall VisIt’s 3rd part I/O libraries and includes to permit plugin development.
- VISIT_JAVA : BOOL : OFF
- Build VisIt’s Java client interface.
- VISIT_NOLINK_MPI_WITH_LIBRARIES : BOOL : OFF
- Do not link MPI with VisIt’s parallel shared libraries; just with executables
- VISIT_OSPRAY : BOOL : OFF
- Build VisIt with support for the OSPRay volume rendering library.
- VISIT_PARALLEL : BOOL : ON
- Build VisIt’s parallel compute engine.
- VISIT_PYTHON_SCRIPTING : BOOL : ON
- Build VisIt with Python scripting support.
- VISIT_PYTHON_FILTERS : BOOL : ON
- Build VisIt with Python Engine Filter support.
- VISIT_SLIVR : BOOL : ON
- Build VisIt with support for the SLIVR volume rendering library.
- VISIT_STATIC : BOOL : OFF
- Build VisIt statically.
7.1.6. Mac OS only¶
- VISIT_CREATE_APPBUNDLE_PACKAGE : BOOL : OFF
- Toggles creation of DMG file with Mac App bundle with make package.
7.1.7. Windows OS only¶
- VISIT_MAKE_NSIS_INSTALLER : BOOL : OFF
Toggles creation of an installer package using NSIS.
The windows.cmake config-site file turns this ON.
- VISIT_MESA_REPLACE_OPENGL : BOOL : OFF
Toggles use of Mesa as a drop-in replacement for OpenGL when system OpenGL is insufficient.
The windows.cmake config-site file turns this ON.
- VISIT_WINDOWS_APPLICATION : BOOL : ON
- Toggles creation of Windows-style applications with no console.
- VISIT_WINDOWS_DIR : PATH :
- Specifies the location of the pre-built third party library binaries. See Location of windowsbuild directory for default locations.