Building on Windows

This is a set of instructions for building OpenSCAD with the Microsoft Visual C++ compilers. It has not been used since circa 2012 and is unlikely to work properly. It is maintained here for historical reference purposes.

A newer build is being attempted with the Msys2 system, please see http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSCAD_User_Manual/Building_on_Microsoft_Windows

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This MSVC build is as static as reasonable, with no external DLL dependencies that are not shipped with Windows

Note: It was last tested on the Dec 2011 build. Newer checkouts of OpenSCAD may not build correctly or require extensive modification to compile under MSVC. OpenSCAD releases of 2012 were typically cross-compiled from linux using the Mingw & MXE system. See Cross-compiling for Windows on Linux or Mac OS X.

Downloads

start by downloading:

Installing

To get OpenSCAD source code:

Where to put other files:

I put all the dependencies in C:\ so for example,

.tgz can be extracted with tar -zxvf from the MingW shell, or Windows tools like 7-zip. Rename and move sub-directories if needed. I.e eigen-eigen-0938af7840b0 should become c:\eigen2, with the files like COPYING and CMakeLists.txt directly under it. c:\glew-1.5.8 should have 'include' and 'lib' directly under it.

Compiling Dependencies

For compilation I use the QT Development Command Prompt

Start->Program Files->Qt by Nokia v4.7.2 (VS2008 OpenSource)->QT 4.7.2 Command Prompt

Qt

Qt needs to be recompiled to get a static C runtime build. To do so, open the command prompt and do: 

configure -static -platform win32-msvc2008 -no-webkit

Configure takes several minutes to finish processing. After it is done, open up the file Qt\4.7.2\mkspecs\win32-msvc2008\qmake.conf and replace every instance of -MD with -MT. Then: 

nmake

This takes a very, very long time. Have a nap. Get something to eat. On a Pentium 4, 2.8GHZ CPU with 1 Gigabyte RAM, Windows XP, it took more than 7 hours, (that was with -O2 turned off)

CGAL

cd C:\CGAL-3.7\
set BOOST_ROOT=C:\boost_1_46_1\
cmake .

Now edit the CMakeCache.txt file. Replace every instance of /MD with /MT . Now, look for a line like this:

CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=Debug

Change Debug to Release. Now re-run cmake 

cmake .

It should scroll by, watch for lines saying "--Building static libraries" and "--Build type: Release" to confirm the proper settings. Also look for /MT in the CXXFLAGS line. When it's done, you can do the build: 

nmake

You should now have a CGAL-vc90-mt-s.lib file under C:\CGAL-3.7\lib . If not, see Troubleshooting, below.

OpenCSG

Launch Visual Express. 

cd C:\OpenCSG-1.3.2
vcexpress OpenCSG.sln
Substitute devenv for vcexpress if you are not using the express version

Build OpenCSG library. You can use the GUI Build/Build menu (the Examples project might fail, but glew and OpenCSG should succeed). Alternatively you can use the command line: 

cmd /c vcexpress OpenCSG.sln /build
Again, substitute devenv if you have the full visual studio

The cmd /c bit is needed otherwise you return to the shell immediately and must wait for the build process to complete (there is no indication that this is happening apart from viewing in task manager).

OpenSCAD

cd C:\openscad
set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%C:\CGAL-3.7\include;C:\CGAL-3.7\auxiliary\gmp\include;
set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%C:\boost_1_46_1;C:\glew-1.5.8\include;C:\OpenCSG-1.3.2\include;C:\eigen2
set LIB=%LIB%C:\CGAL-3.7\lib;C:\CGAL-3.7\auxiliary\gmp\lib;
set LIB=%LIB%C:\boost_1_46_1\lib;C:\glew-1.5.8\lib;C:\OpenCSG-1.3.2\lib
qmake
nmake -f Makefile.Release

Wait for the nmake to end. There are usually a lot of non-fatal warnings about the linker. On success, an openscad.exe file appears in the release folder. Enjoy.

Building an installer

Compiling the regression tests

set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Python27 (or your version of python)
cd c:\openscad\tests\
cmake . -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
Edit the CMakeCache.txt file, search/replace /MD to /MT
cmake .
nmake -f Makefile

ctest

If you have link problems, see Troubleshooting, below.

Troubleshooting

Linker errors

If you have errors during linking, the first step is to improve debug logging, and redirect to a file. Open Openscad.pro and uncomment this line: 

 QMAKE_LFLAGS   += -VERBOSE

Now rerun 

 nmake -f Makefile.Release > log.txt

You can use a program like 'less' (search with '/') or wordpad to review the log.

To debug these errors, you must understand basics about Windows linking. Windows links to its standard C library with basic C functions like malloc(). But there are four different ways to do this, as follows: 

compiler switch - type - linked runtime C library
/MT - Multithreaded static Release - link to LIBCMT.lib 
/MTd - Multithreaded static Debug - link to LIBCMTD.lib 
/MD - Multithreaded DLL Release - link to MSVCRT.lib (which itself helps link to the DLL)
/MDd - Multithreaded DLL Debug - link to MSVCRTD.lib (which itself helps link to the DLL)

All of the libraries that are link together in a final executable must be compiled with the same type of linking to the standard C library. Otherwise, you get link errors like, "LNK2005 - XXX is already defined in YYY". But how can you track down which library wasn't linked properly? 1. Look at the log, and 2. dumpbin.exe

dumpbin.exe

dumpbin.exe can help you determine what type of linking your .lib or .obj files were created with. For example, dumpbin.exe /all CGAL.lib | find /i "DEFAULTLIB" gives you a list of DEFAULTLIB symbols inside of CGAL.lib. Look for LIBCMT, LIBCMTD, MSVCRT, or MSVCRTD. That tells you, according to the above table, whether it was built Static Release, Static Debug, DLL Release, or DLL Debug. (DLL, of course means Dynamic Link Library in this conversation.) This can help you track down, for example, linker errors about conflicting symbols in LIBCMT and LIBCMTD.

dumpbin.exe can also help you understand errors involving unresolved external symbols. For example, if you get an error about unresolved external symbol ___GLEW_NV_occlusion_query, but your VERBOSE error log says the program linked in glew32.lib, then you can dumpbin.exe /all glew32.lib | find /i "occlusion" to see if the symbol is actually there. You may see a mangled symbol, with __impl, which gives you another clue with which you can google. In this particular example, glew32s.lib (s=static) should have been linked instead of glew32.lib.

CGAL

CGAL-vc90-mt-s.lib

After compilation, it is possible that you might get a file named CGAL-vc90-mt.lib or CGAL-vc90-mt-gd.lib instead of CGAL-vc90-mt-s.lib. There are many possibilities: you accidentally built the wrong version, or you may have built the right version and VCExpress named it wrong. To double check, and fix the problem, you can do the following: 

cd C:\CGAL-3.7\lib
dumpbin /all CGAL-vc90-mt.lib | find /i "DEFAULTLIB"
(if you have mt-gd, use that name instead)

If this shows lines referencing LIBCMTD, MSVCRT, or MSVCRTD then you accidentally built the debug and/or dynamic version, and you need to clean the build, and try to build again with proper settings to get the multi-threaded static release version. However, if it just says LIBCMT, then you are probably OK. Look for another line saying DEFAULTLIB:CGAL-vc90-mt-s. If it is there, then you can probably just rename the file and have it work. 

move CGAL-vc90-mt.lib CGAL-vc90-mt-s.lib

Visual Studio build

You can build CGAL using the GUI of visual studio, as an alternative to nmake. You have to use an alternate cmake syntax. Type 'cmake' by itself and it gives you a list of 'generators' that are valid for your machine; for example Visual Studio Express is cmake -G"Visual Studio 9 2008" .. That should get you a working .sln (solution) file.

Then run this: 

vcexpress CGAL.sln

Modify the build configure target to Release (not Debug) and change the properties of the projects to be '/MT' multithreaded static builds. This is the similar procedure used to build OpenCSG, so refer to those instructions above for more detail.

Note for Unix users

The 'MingW Shell' (Start/Programs) provide tools like bash, sed, grep, vi, tar, &c. The C:\ drive is under '/c/'. MingW has packages, for example: mingw-get install msys-unzip downloads and installs the 'unzip' program. Git contains some programs by default, like perl. The windows command shell has cut/paste - hit alt-space. You can also change the scrollback buffer settings.

References