ParaView/Superbuild

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Introduction

This page describes how to build ParaView binaries along with most, if not all, of the external dependencies that ParaView needs to generate a full featured build of ParaView.

We use CMake External Projects to provide users/developers with a uber cmake project that can build ParaView and its dependencies and hence we refer to it as the ParaView Superbuild. For instructions on building ParaView itself, providing installed or prebuilt versions of the dependencies, refer to ParaView:Build And Install instructions.

The process described here can be used to generate redistributable binaries and is indeed the process we use to generate binaries available for download from ParaView download page. Although, the user can control some of the feature set, advanced capabilities are not exposed requiring users to dig into the cmake files to change esoteric configuration parameters. We summarize the structure of the cmake files at the end of this document. These can be easily customized to adapt for building extra dependencies or plugins or custom applications.

Prerequisites

• ParaView-Superbuild requires CMake, version 2.8.8 or higher and a working compiler. On Unix-like operating systems, it also requires Make, while on Windows it requires Visual Studio (8 or later). Follow these instructions to download and install cmake. This document assumes familiarity with using CMake.

• On Windows, in order to enable scripting support, Python is required.

Obtaining the source

ParaView-Superbuild is available as separate Git repository. Simply clone the ParaViewSuperbuild.git repo. One may browse the repositories online using the Gitweb interface at http://paraview.org/gitweb.

Repository	Purpose	Access	URL
ParaViewSuperbuild.git	ParaView Super-Build	fetch (git)	git://paraview.org/ParaViewSuperbuild.git
		fetch (http)	http://paraview.org/ParaViewSuperbuild.git
		push (ssh)	git@paraview.org:ParaViewSuperbuild.git

Developer Notes

This section describes the under-pinnings of the cmake files that build ParaView and its dependencies.

Overview

ParaView Super-Build is used to build and package multiple projects. The general strategy is that we build sub-projects, including ParaView, and install the sub-project using its install rules under a specific root directory. By passing CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH to point to this root, we rely on sub-projects finding each other as needed. Once all sub-projects are built and installed in this internal root directory, we run a cmake script that generates the redistributable package. This script tends to be highly customized for the platform and the application since it is expected to leverage all the knowledge about files that need to go into the package and where should they be placed.