Re: [openvrml-develop] How to compile OpenVRML under Windows Vista or XP

[Braden M. <br...@en...>]

On Thu, 2008-07-31 at 08:05 -0700, rte...@ya... wrote:
> Hello all,
> I tried the "How to compile OpenVRML under Windows Vista or XP" but it did not work for me. There were a couple things that I was unsure about along the way that I took note of:

I haven't tried these instructions line-by-line myself; but looking over
them they describe basically the procedure I use.

> >>
> 6. Download and install Freetype2 2.3.6 from here:
> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3157
> There's a solution file in the builds/win32/visualc subdirectory
> that you can create the .lib file with.
> Once that's done, move it to your morelibs directory. 
> <<
> 
> where is the morelibs directory? I did the earlier part of point 6., but I did not know where to move the .lib file generated.

Looks like perhaps an editing mistake in the instructions. I generally
just add the place where the FreeType solution generates the .libs to
Visual C++'s .lib file search path.

> 9. Add the include directory for libpng to the VC++ include path list.
> This is just the lpng directory itself.
> Add the libpng's library directory to VC++'s library path list
> since we will use this later when compiling OpenVRML.
> It is this:
> lpng1229/projects/visualc71/Win32_LIB_Debug/libpng13d.lib
> Build libpng 
> <<
> 
> This worked, kind of. I had to Build libpng *before* i got the win32_LIB_Debug folder and file being created. (I thought that made sense by the way) correct me if I'm wrong.

Sounds right to me.

> 12. You will need to install SDL. 
> You have two options: To download precompiled DLLs
> plus include files, or to build it yourself.
> For precompiled go here:
> http://www.libsdl.org/download-1.2.php
> (I found that the precompiled SDL 1.2.13 works.)
> The included DLLs that will have to be installed in
> the binary directory of OpenVRML or in c:\windows\system32.
> >>
> 
> I used the procompiled DLLs (only one DLL file by the by the way SDL.dll ver 1.2.13.0)
> I tried in the c:\windows\system32 folder alone. 
> I tried in the binary directory of OpenVRML. (simultaneously with the ..\system32 copy of the file)
> I don't have the directx sdk, do I really need to download this even for the precompiled files?
> (Ok i'll download it anyway, but do I really need it?)

I never recommend manually dumping anything in windows\system32.

I generally just put SDL.dll in the bin directory where OpenVRML's
solution dumps its DLLs and executables.

> 13. Add SDL's header and library directories to the VC++'s path lists.
> <<
> I did this but I believe it's causing a linking error during my build.

It's a necessary step; I'm not sure what the problem might be without
seeing the errors.

> Have I extracted the source files correctly? Here is the path:
> D:\openvrml-0.17.6\openvrml-0.17.6\ide-projects\Windows\VisualC9_0\OpenVRML\..
> 
> Should I shorten the path by removing an "openvrml-0.17.6" ie copy out the stuff to one directory higher. On my next build I'll remove the "-0.17.6" by renaming/copying out

It shouldn't matter. Whatever you prefer.

> I had to use the d: drive because during compilation the process used up about 500mb of hdd space. (is this normal by the way? what's happening to cause this?)

Part of the issue is likely OpenVRML's rather extensive use of C++
templates. This can result in some really big symbols.

> 18. Build the solution. The only executable with be sdl-viewer.exe. <<
> Could not complete this due to the following errors:
> 
> 	1.) Compiling...
> sdl_viewer.cpp
> d:\openvrml-0.17.6\openvrml-0.17.6\examples\sdl_viewer.cpp(29) : fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'SDL.h': No such file or directory

Looks like you need to add the include directory for SDL's headers to
the include path.

> 2.)
>  LINK : fatal error LNK1181: cannot open input file 'zlibd.lib'
>  an openvrml build log error
> Why is it looking for "zlibd.lib", I thought it was "zlib.lib"

zlibd is, presumably, the debug version. It is a convention on Windows
to append a "d" to the name of the debug version of a library. Perhaps
you just need to compile the debug version of zlib.

> 3.)
> LINK : fatal error LNK1181: cannot open input file '..\..\lib\openvrmld.lib'
> An openvrml-gl build log error
> 
> of course I can post the entire log files if anyone is interested

openvrmld.lib wouldn't have been created if zlibd.lib couldn't be found
(which presumably libpng needs; libopenvrml doesn't depend on zlib
directly). Any errors past this point aren't really interesting until we
correct the above ones.

> OS Name	Microsoft Windows XP Professional	
> Version	5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600	
> System Type	X86-based PC	
> Processor	x86 Family 15 Model 95 Stepping 2 AuthenticAMD ~2009 Mhz	
> Windows Directory	C:\WINDOWS	
> System Directory	C:\WINDOWS\system32	
> Total Physical Memory	1,024.00 MB	
> Available Physical Memory	537.21 MB

I think this much memory should be okay on Windows; though it will be a
little tight. Visual C++ isn't as much of a memory pig as gcc.

-- 
Braden McDaniel                           e-mail: <br...@en...>
<http://endoframe.com>                    Jabber: <br...@ja...>