Build Enviroment Setup on Microsoft Windows

Introduction

The Digital Geometry Processing software is written in C++. In order to compile and run the software on you computer you must have a working compiler, Qt 5.6.0, and the latest version 0f Cmake (currently 3.6.2). In this section we will guide you to setup your enviroment.

1   Compiler: Visual Studio Community 2015

In Microsoft Windows we will use Visual Studio Community 2015 to compile the software. Install Visual Studio by downloading the online installer. Open the installer and follow the instructions.

Select "Custom" and next choose to install only "Visual C++" as shown in the images above. The installer will download the required files from the internet and install the required components.


2   Cmake

Download and open the latest version of Cmake for your version of Microsoft Windows from cmake.org (currently 3.6.2). Accept the license and copy Cmake to the Application folder using drag and drop.


3   Qt Framework

The Digital Geometry Processing software is based on the Qt Framework. To install, download either Qt 5.6.0 Installer x86 (32bits) or Qt 5.6.0 Installer x64 (64bits) (about 800MB) corresponding to you version of Microsoft Windows (either 32bits or 64bits). Open the installer and follow the instructions, look at the next screenshots as reference.

Feel free to click 'Skip' at the screen asking for a Qt account.


3.1   Add Qt to your path

Qt binary directory must be added to you Microsoft Windows path variable, or you will see the following error when trying to execute the Digital Geometry Processing software: 'The program can't start because QtWidgetsd.dll is missing...'.


Go to the Start menu and type 'view advanced' to open the 'View advanced system settings' dialog. On the dialog click the 'Enviroment Variables...' button.


Go to the Qt installation directory and find the 'bin' directory. By default it should be 'C:\Qt\Qt5.6.0\5.6\msvc2015\bin' in a 32bits setup and 'C:\Qt\Qt5.6.0\5.6\msvc2015_64\bin' in a 64bits setup. Copy the path to the clipboard (Ctrl+C) or remember its location.


Go back to the settings dialog and search for 'Path' among the System variables at the bottom. Click the 'Path' variable to select it and click on the 'Edit...' button. Use the arrow keys to carefully move to the end of the current path (WITHOUT DELETING ANYTHING) and add at the very end a ';' separator plus the path to the Qt 'bin' directory form the previous step (use Ctrl+V to paste). It might look similar to the following screen:


Press 'Ok' on the several screens to close all the dialog windows and save the modified path. If Visual Studio was open, you must close it and open it again to take the new path.