OpenRAVE build-system upgrade

[Rosen Diankov-2]

OpenRAVE has recently undergone some pretty major changes in the way
files are built and installed (all for the best of course). One of the
biggest changes was to move the entire build system to cmake (thanks
to Leopold Palomo-Avellaneda for the initial files!). cmake is much
easier to work with, much faster than autotools, allows you to compile
on all cores (i think it is the -j option), and can build visual
studio files. The new build system now automatically compiles the
matlab/octave script files depending on what is installed on your
system, so hopefully this should make yet another step really smooth.

As of rev 411 , the first thing you'll notice is that there is no more
build.sh. All you have to do is

make

then

make install

This will setup openrave to install to /usr/local, if you want to
change this use "make prefix=/my/desired/dir". Prior to this change,
it was necessary to run openrave from the local bin folder because all
the resources files were stored there, however starting from this
build, this is no longer necessary! When installing, openrave will
install all its resource/script files into

${INSTALLDIR}/share/openrave

you can find in there 'octave' and 'matlab' folders for the scripts,
and the 'robots', 'data', and 'models' folders for the resources. You
can also find a 'plugins' folder where the default distribution
plugins will be installed.

OpenRAVE now has capability to load plugins and data files from
multiple folders controlled by environment variables OPENRAVE_PLUGINS
and OPENRAVE_DATA. If these aren't set, the default install
directories are used. See the INSTALL file for more information on
this. For plugin writers, what this means is that you don't have to
always make install to the local openrave directory (in fact, there is
no local plugins directory anymore). Instead append your own plugins
directory to OPENRAVE_PLUGINS for openrave to recognize it in the
beginning when launching.

Finally, to clean all files and cmake caches use

make clean

To configure the various cmake options, do

ccmake build

This should pop up a text GUI where you can edit the variables

All these changes should be pretty transparent, the only thing people
should watch out for is if they have their own models in the bin/data,
bin/robots, and bin/models folder. OpenRAVE will not read those
anymore, so you would have to add the local bin folder to
OPENRAVE_DATA.

The changes are still pretty recent, so I think the Mac and Windows
builds might be temporarily broken. The Linux build should build and
install everything perfectly (the playerrave plugin is temporarily
disabled). If anyone has problems, please email me asap!

rosen,

[Rosen Diankov-2]

As of revision 421 the windows build works (was tested on visual
studio 2005). Once openrave is compiled via visual studio, manually
build the INSTALL project, this will install openrave and all
necessary files to "C:\Program Files\openrave". The actual executable
can be found in "C:\Program Files\openrave\bin". Because openrave
automatically looks for the plugins and resource files based on its
environment variables, it can be launched from anywhere. Note that the
matlab mex files are automatically compiled and can be found in
"C:\Program Files\openrave\shared\matlab" once everything is
installed.

rosen,

2008/11/2 Rosen Diankov <[hidden email]>:

> OpenRAVE has recently undergone some pretty major changes in the way
> files are built and installed (all for the best of course). One of the
> biggest changes was to move the entire build system to cmake (thanks
> to Leopold Palomo-Avellaneda for the initial files!). cmake is much
> easier to work with, much faster than autotools, allows you to compile
> on all cores (i think it is the -j option), and can build visual
> studio files. The new build system now automatically compiles the
> matlab/octave script files depending on what is installed on your
> system, so hopefully this should make yet another step really smooth.
>
> As of rev 411 , the first thing you'll notice is that there is no more
> build.sh. All you have to do is
>
> make
>
> then
>
> make install
>
> This will setup openrave to install to /usr/local, if you want to
> change this use "make prefix=/my/desired/dir". Prior to this change,
> it was necessary to run openrave from the local bin folder because all
> the resources files were stored there, however starting from this
> build, this is no longer necessary! When installing, openrave will
> install all its resource/script files into
>
> ${INSTALLDIR}/share/openrave
>
> you can find in there 'octave' and 'matlab' folders for the scripts,
> and the 'robots', 'data', and 'models' folders for the resources. You
> can also find a 'plugins' folder where the default distribution
> plugins will be installed.
>
> OpenRAVE now has capability to load plugins and data files from
> multiple folders controlled by environment variables OPENRAVE_PLUGINS
> and OPENRAVE_DATA. If these aren't set, the default install
> directories are used. See the INSTALL file for more information on
> this. For plugin writers, what this means is that you don't have to
> always make install to the local openrave directory (in fact, there is
> no local plugins directory anymore). Instead append your own plugins
> directory to OPENRAVE_PLUGINS for openrave to recognize it in the
> beginning when launching.
>
> Finally, to clean all files and cmake caches use
>
> make clean
>
> To configure the various cmake options, do
>
> ccmake build
>
> This should pop up a text GUI where you can edit the variables
>
> All these changes should be pretty transparent, the only thing people
> should watch out for is if they have their own models in the bin/data,
> bin/robots, and bin/models folder. OpenRAVE will not read those
> anymore, so you would have to add the local bin folder to
> OPENRAVE_DATA.
>
> The changes are still pretty recent, so I think the Mac and Windows
> builds might be temporarily broken. The Linux build should build and
> install everything perfectly (the playerrave plugin is temporarily
> disabled). If anyone has problems, please email me asap!
>
> rosen,
>

[Rosen Diankov-2]

One thing I forgot to mention. Plugins using the older build system
should still continue to work fine. The only change is that
rave-config is now named to openrave-config. The usage is exactly the
same and the plugin should by default install to where the rest of the
default plugins are: ${INSTALL}/share/openrave/plugins

rosen,

2008/11/3 Rosen Diankov <[hidden email]>:

> As of revision 421 the windows build works (was tested on visual
> studio 2005). Once openrave is compiled via visual studio, manually
> build the INSTALL project, this will install openrave and all
> necessary files to "C:\Program Files\openrave". The actual executable
> can be found in "C:\Program Files\openrave\bin". Because openrave
> automatically looks for the plugins and resource files based on its
> environment variables, it can be launched from anywhere. Note that the
> matlab mex files are automatically compiled and can be found in
> "C:\Program Files\openrave\shared\matlab" once everything is
> installed.
>
> rosen,
>
> 2008/11/2 Rosen Diankov <[hidden email]>:
>> OpenRAVE has recently undergone some pretty major changes in the way
>> files are built and installed (all for the best of course). One of the
>> biggest changes was to move the entire build system to cmake (thanks
>> to Leopold Palomo-Avellaneda for the initial files!). cmake is much
>> easier to work with, much faster than autotools, allows you to compile
>> on all cores (i think it is the -j option), and can build visual
>> studio files. The new build system now automatically compiles the
>> matlab/octave script files depending on what is installed on your
>> system, so hopefully this should make yet another step really smooth.
>>
>> As of rev 411 , the first thing you'll notice is that there is no more
>> build.sh. All you have to do is
>>
>> make
>>
>> then
>>
>> make install
>>
>> This will setup openrave to install to /usr/local, if you want to
>> change this use "make prefix=/my/desired/dir". Prior to this change,
>> it was necessary to run openrave from the local bin folder because all
>> the resources files were stored there, however starting from this
>> build, this is no longer necessary! When installing, openrave will
>> install all its resource/script files into
>>
>> ${INSTALLDIR}/share/openrave
>>
>> you can find in there 'octave' and 'matlab' folders for the scripts,
>> and the 'robots', 'data', and 'models' folders for the resources. You
>> can also find a 'plugins' folder where the default distribution
>> plugins will be installed.
>>
>> OpenRAVE now has capability to load plugins and data files from
>> multiple folders controlled by environment variables OPENRAVE_PLUGINS
>> and OPENRAVE_DATA. If these aren't set, the default install
>> directories are used. See the INSTALL file for more information on
>> this. For plugin writers, what this means is that you don't have to
>> always make install to the local openrave directory (in fact, there is
>> no local plugins directory anymore). Instead append your own plugins
>> directory to OPENRAVE_PLUGINS for openrave to recognize it in the
>> beginning when launching.
>>
>> Finally, to clean all files and cmake caches use
>>
>> make clean
>>
>> To configure the various cmake options, do
>>
>> ccmake build
>>
>> This should pop up a text GUI where you can edit the variables
>>
>> All these changes should be pretty transparent, the only thing people
>> should watch out for is if they have their own models in the bin/data,
>> bin/robots, and bin/models folder. OpenRAVE will not read those
>> anymore, so you would have to add the local bin folder to
>> OPENRAVE_DATA.
>>
>> The changes are still pretty recent, so I think the Mac and Windows
>> builds might be temporarily broken. The Linux build should build and
>> install everything perfectly (the playerrave plugin is temporarily
>> disabled). If anyone has problems, please email me asap!
>>
>> rosen,
>>
>