A primer on Geometric Optimization

Install tools

Install all of the following components well before the session. Note that some of these packages are large (multiple GB) and take time to download and install. Make sure to test everything to be ready to go.

If you are experienced in C++ and have everyting already setup, jump to Building directly.

(1) Development environment & C++ compiler

If you already have a C++ environment set up, skip this section and feel free to use your favorite editor, IDE, compilers, etc.

If you don't have your toolchain set up already, I recommend installing IDEs that take of the toolchain for you:

• Windows: Visual Studio, which installs the MSVC compiler for you
• MacOS: Xcode, which installs clang for you

(2) CMake

Install CMake, which is the build system that creates the C++ project, sets up dependencies, etc. If you are new to CMake, I recommend using the CMake GUI.

(3) Boost C++ libraries

• Windows: Install instructions.
  • You might need to run the command prompt in admin mode. I recommend using the Developer command prompt that is installed by Visual Studio.
  • Check that a system variable in your environment variables was created: BOOST_ROOT: <path-to-boost>\boost_1_77_0. Create the variable if needed.
• MacOS: Install instructions
  1. Go to the terminal. Make sure you have brew installed by typing brew -v. If not, see brew installation.
  2. Install boost by brew install boost.
  3. Find the where boost is located by typing brew info boost. Its output should contain a path that looks like /opt/homebrew/Cellar/boost/1.79.0_2.
  4. Run export BOOST_ROOT=/opt/homebrew/Cellar/boost/1.79.0_2 (or whatever boost path you see in the previous step) to make sure your build system can find boost. Do this before building EVERYTIME.

Building

(1) Clone the code recursively

This project uses libigl for geometry processing. See the libigl tutorial. Clone this repository with all dependencies, configured as submodules, using:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/alexiiion/teach-geometric-optimization.git

(2) Build using CMake

On Windows, open the CMake GUI (see the image below).

1. The source code folder is this folder (where this README is)
2. The build folder should be contained in this folder, e.g., <path-to-repo-root>/_build
3. Click Configure and keep the settings (your Visual Studio version might be newer, keep Use default native compilers unless you know what you do.)

4. Click Generate, which will create your project files, after successful configuration (indicated by Configuration done.)

On MacOS, you can also use the cmake-gui, as described above. Alterantively, from the root directory that contains CMakeLists.txt, run:

mkdir __build
cd __build
cmake ../
make

The line cmake ../ will configure the project for you and make will build the project. Here is how your folder should look like after successful building:

(3) Run the code

• Windows: open the *.sln file, which opens Visual Studio. There, set the configuration to RelWithDebInfo. Right click on the 0_compilation_test project in the Solution Explorer and select Set as Startup Project. Then compile using the little green arrow. This will take a while.

• MacOS:

  1. Go to __build in your terminal.
  2. Execute ./0_compilation_test and hopefully it runs!
  3. It's unlikely, but if you see something like zsh: permission denied: ./0_compilation_test, try chmod +x 0_compilation_test before step 2.

This is the result of a successful compilation: