hlrs-vis/covise — 200 Stars

[COVISE][1], the collaborative visualization and simulation environment, is a modular distributed visualization system. As its focus is on visualization of scientific data in virtual environments, it comprises the VR renderer [OpenCOVER][2]. COVISE development is headed by [HLRS][3]. It is portable to Windows and UNIX. We do regular builds on x86_64 Windows, Linux and macOS.

Other Software

Also included in this repository are [OddLOT][8], an OpenDRIVE editor, as well as vrmlExp, a VRML97 and X3D exporter for Autodesk 3ds Max.

License =======

If not stated otherwise, the source code in this repository is licensed under the LGPL v2.1. See lgpl-2.1.txt for details.

Support & Mailing Lists =======================

As a user of COVISE, you might get answers to your questions on the [covise-users][4] mailing list. Please direct any questions related to installing/building/using COVISE there.

You can receive notifications of changes to COVISE on the [covise-commits][5] list.

Getting Binaries and Automated Installation ===========================================

If you need OddLOT only, please have a look at [https://github.com/hbanzhaf/docker_covise][9].

macOS

There is a [Homebrew][6] formula for COVISE. If you have it on your system, then you can simply

brew install hlrs-vis/tap/covise

This will install COVISE, OpenCOVER, and OddLOT with all their dependencies.

Windows

Windows binaries, which include COVISE, OpenCOVER and OddLOT, can be found on the [COVISE download page][7]. A separate installer for the VRML exporter vrmlExp is also available on the same webpage.

Getting the Source Code =======================

UNIX and Command Line

Getting COVISE is as easy as

git clone https://github.com/hlrs-vis/covise.git --recursive

Update your existing copy to the current version by

git pull -r git submodule sync --recursive git submodule update --init --recursive # update submodules to latest required version

Working with Git

UNIX

cd covise git pull -r #-r requests a rebase of your changes to avoid trivial branching git submodule update --init --recursive # update submodules to latest required version

Building COVISE and OpenCOVER =============================

Build Requirements

The script scripts/install-deps.sh will help you to install the dependencies provided by your Linux distribution (Debian/Ubuntu and RHEL/CentOS).

C++ compiler:

C++11

On Windows, we currently use Visual Studio 2022 (VC17). GCC 5.3 and newer should work.

CMake:

3.1 or newer is required, but currently we suggest CMake 3.7 or newer

XercesC:
Qt:

Qt 5 or 6 is required by the graphical user interface. Not everything, most importantly OddLOT, works with Qt 6 yet.

For Qt5, you need the following modules: - Qt5Core - Qt5Network - Qt5Xml - Qt5Widgets - Qt5OpenGL - Qt5WebKit - Qt5WebKitWidgets - Qt5Gui - Qt5Svg - Qt5PrintSupport - Qt5UiTools - Qt5Script - Qt5ScriptTools

On Ubuntu 14.04, you should be able to install the required packages with this command: sudo apt-get install qttools5-dev qtscript5-dev libqt5scripttools5 libqt5svg5-dev libqt5opengl5-dev libqt5webkit5-dev

Boost:

1.52 and newer should work, following boost libraries are required: - chrono - date-time - filesystem - iostreams - locale - program-options - regex - serialization - system - thread When any of these are missing, you will only get a generic message, that "Boost" is missing. Thus beware! Ubuntu 14.04: sudo apt-get install libboost-all-dev

Python:

Python 3 is required for the GUI vr-prepare and for the scripting interface

GLEW:

Used for OpenGL extension handling in Virvo (direct volume rendering) and OpenCOVER

OpenSceneGraph:

3.2 or newer is required, 3.4 or newer highly recommended for the VR and desktop renderer OpenCOVER

Optional Dependencies

JPEG Turbo
VTK

Version 6 or newer is required.

Flex and Bison

Lexer/Parser generators, required to build VRML plugin.

Install dependencies on Redhat8

dnf -y install xerces-c
dnf -y install xerces-c-devel
dnf -y install glibc-static
dnf -y install libXi-devel dnf -y install glibc-utils
dnf -y install glut dnf -y install glut-devel dnf -y install boost dnf -y install boost-devel
dnf -y install cmake    dnf -y install cmake3
dnf -y install qt5-qttools-devel dnf -y install qt5-qtscript-devel dnf -y install qt5-qtsvg-devel dnf -y install qt5-qttools-static dnf -y install glew-devel dnf -y install libtiff-devel dnf -y install qt5-qtquickcontrols dnf -y install qt5-qtdeclarative-devel dnf -y install qt5-qtlocation qt5-qtlocation-devel
dnf -y install boost-chrono dnf -y install boost-date-time dnf -y install boost-filesystem dnf -y install boost-iostreams dnf -y install boost-locale dnf -y install boost-program-options dnf -y install boost-regex dnf -y install boost-serialization dnf -y install boost-system dnf -y install boost-thread dnf --enablerepo=PowerTools install qt5-qttools-static dnf --enablerepo=PowerTools install libGLEW dnf --enablerepo=PowerTools install glew-devel
dnf install http://repo.okay.com.mx/centos/8/x86_64/release/okay-release-1-1.noarch.rpm dnf install gcc-gfortran dnf --enablerepo=PowerTools install libstdc++-static dnf --enablerepo=PowerTools install boost-static dnf install python3-pyqt5-sip dnf install fuse-devel

Tracking Dependencies

CMake will show lists of met and unmet optional and required dependencies. You should check those and install additional prerequisites as needed.

Directory for Third Party Dependencies

COVISE is set up to automatically search for third party libraries in subdirectories of a directory pointed to by the environment variable EXTERNLIBS. You should install e.g. OpenSceneGraph into $EXTERNLIBS/openscenegraph, and it will be discovered during the build process.

Building on UNIX

cd covise source .covise.sh #set environment variables make #invoke cmake followed by make

This command sequence sets environment variables necessary while building COVISE, invokes cmake for the COVISE project, and builds COVISE with OpenCOVER.

After an initial build, it is possible to invoke make from within subdirectories of covise/src.

No installation is required: you can use COVISE directly from the build tree.

Building only OpenCOVER

cd covise source .covise.sh #set environment variables COVISECMAKEOPTIONS=-DCOVISEBUILDONLY_COVER=ON make #invoke cmake with provided options followed by make

Building only OddLOT

cd covise source .covise.sh #set environment variables COVISECMAKEOPTIONS=-DCOVISEBUILDONLY_ODDLOT=ON make #invoke cmake with provided options followed by make

Building on Windows

Also on Windows, you should work from a command prompt:

REM set COVISEDIR to location of your COVISE checkout set COVISEDIR=c:/src/covise REM set EXTERNLIBS to correct location of all your dependancies set EXTERNLIBSROOT=c:\src\externlibs cd %COVISEDIR% REM call winenv.bat with appropriate archsuffix for debug or release (tamarau for Visual Studio 2012 and zebu for 2015) call %COVISEDIR%\winenv.bat zebuopt mkdir build.covise cd build.covise cmake-gui .. REM open Visual Studio - either directly or with the button from CMake GUI devenv

To create a permanent link to a covise command prompt edit and execute Scripts/installCoviseCommandPrompt.bat

Building with VS Code

This is an experimental alternative to Visual Studio. You need VS Code with the C/C++ Extension Pack and the CMake Tools expansions installed. You also need the MSVC compiler (with ATL support) and one of the supported generators (Ninja, Visual Studio). An additional dependency is https://github.com/nlohmann/json which should be installed like COVISE's other dependencies in the EXTERNLIBS directory. To configure and build COVISE:

open the COVISE directory with VS Code use the command palette (ctrl + shift + p) -> Tasks: Run Task -> Configure COVISE fill in requested information select a compiler via the CMake extension (button in the bottom bar or via the command pallete -> CMake: Select a Kit) run CMake with a build configuration (button in the bottom bar or via the command pallete -> CMake: Configure) build (button in the bottom bar or via the command pallete -> CMake: Build)

After this setup VS Code's default integrated terminal is configured to load the environment required to work with COVISE. Additionally debug configurations to launch COVISE and OpenCOVIER or to attach to a process are provided under VS Code's debug section. InteliSense should be enabled if you are using a generator that can export compile commands (Ninja).

Changing CMake Settings

You can influence which parts of COVISE are built by editing CMake settings in ${COVISEDIR}/${ARCHSUFFIX}/build.covise/CMakeCache.txt. This might help you work around build problems.

cd ${COVISEDIR}/${ARCHSUFFIX}/build.covise ccmake ../..

COVISEBUILDONLY_COVER: build only the OpenCOVER VR/desktop renderer without the COVISE visualization pipeline
COVISEBUILDONLY_ODDLOT: build only the road editor OddLOT
COVISEBUILDDRIVINGSIM: enable the driving simulator components of OpenCOVER
COVISEUSEVIRVO: disable support for direct volume rendering
COVISEUSECUDA: disable use of CUDA
COVISECPUARCH: set optimization for the CPU in your computer

After changing any of these settings, you have to restart the build process.

You can also provide initial CMake options by adding them to the environment COVISECMAKEOPTIONS before calling make.

Building Documentation ======================

COVISE retrieves documentation from the web server at HLRS. But you also can build the documentation locally. You need the following tools:

pdflatex
latex2html
doxygen
graphviz
epstopdf

Then you can:

cd ${COVISEDIR}/doc make

Invoking COVISE ===============

UNIX

Add .../covise/bin to your PATH.

covise

Windows

COVISE can be used without installation, provided you take the same steps as for building:

REM set COVISEDIR to location of your COVISE checkout set COVISEDIR=c:/src/covise REM set EXTERNLIBS to correct location of all your dependancies set EXTERNLIBSROOT=c:\src\externlibs cd %COVISEDIR% REM call winenv.bat with appropriate archsuffix for debug or release (tamarau for Visual Studio 2012 and zebu for 2015 Update 3, 2017 or 2019) call %COVISEDIR%\winenv.bat zebuopt covise opencover

Source Code Organization ========================

cmake:

cmake files

doc:

documentation and tools for creating documentation

config:

configuration examples

scripts:

support scripts for building COVISE

share:

architecture independent files: textures, shaders, example data, ...

src:

source code

- src/3rdparty: 3rd party source code

- src/tools: various programs related to building or using COVISE

- src/kernel: COVISE core libraries

- src/sys: COVISE core executables

- src/module: COVISE visualization modules (algorithms)

- src/OpenCOVER: VR renderer with its plug-ins

- src/oddlot: OpenDRIVE road editor OddLOT

[1]: http://www.hlrs.de/covise/ [2]: http://www.hlrs.de/solutions-services/service-portfolio/visualization/covise/opencover/ [3]: http://www.hlrs.de/ [4]: https://listserv.uni-stuttgart.de/mailman/listinfo/covise-users [5]: https://listserv.uni-stuttgart.de/mailman/listinfo/covise-commits [6]: http://brew.sh [7]: https://fs.hlrs.de/projects/covise/support/download/ [8]: http://www.hlrs.de/oddlot/ [9]: https://github.com/hbanzhaf/docker_covise

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