CalVR

Overview

This wiki page was created to give programmers an overview of how to use IVL's virtual reality visualization framework CalVR. Special emphasis is given to those programmers who already know how to write code for COVISE.

CalVR Specs

1. Operating system: CentOS 5 Linux
2. Programming language: C++
3. Graphics API: OpenSceneGraph
4. Build system: CMake
5. Tracking APIs supported: VRPN, TrackD
6. PC cluster support
7. Support for multi-screen virtual reality systems

Building OSG

The developer release of OSG can be found here. Go to main OSG directory and type ccmake . In CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE, press Enter to edit the field, type in one of the options that with debug information: RelWithDebInfo Press 'c' to configure, press 'g' to generate. and 'q' to quit. Now type make to build. Go get coffee.

Building CalVR

Make sure all CalVR Dependencies (OSG, Mini XML, GLEW) are specified by environment variables. If not, set them in the shell startup script (eg, .cshrc, .bash_profile).

Run cmake/bin/cmake-gui, let CalVR/ be both source and binaries.

Click Configure, select Unix Makefile, and it should show a configuration list for CalVR.

Navigate to OSG-->OSG_LIBRARY, if it is NOTFOUND, you may need to point it to your osg/lib, this is an example input:

 -L/home/hwang/CalVR/externs/osg/lib -losgFXrd -losgParticlerd -losgTextrd -losgSimrd -losgGArd -losgViewerrd -losgDBrd -losgShadowrd -losgUtilrd -lOpenThreadsrd -ldl

Note that many -losg*rd inputs, where are different than the IVL OSG_LIBRARIES, with extra "rd" tails (release and debug). In some configurations the libraries may no have "rd" tailing.

You may also turn on PLUGINS->PLUGINS_CALIT to build your plugin at the same time.

Click Generate, when it is done, you may exit the GUI.

In the CalVR folder, type make to build.

Runing CalVR

Before runing CalVR you need to add osg/lib into your LD_LIBRARY_PATH in .cshrc

Add an environment variable to .cshrc, for example:

setenv CALVR_HOME /home/hwang/CalVR/

The main CalVR executable is CalVR/bin/CalVR.

Adding a new Plugin for CalVR

Use CalVR/plugins/calit2/ModelLoader as a template:

Make a copy of the ModelLoader folder, rename it to <YourPluginName>. Each source code directory has the files "CMakeLists.txt" and "cmake_install.cmake". In order for cmake to generate a make file for the new plugin, we need to add an entry to these cmake files in the parent directory, and modify the cmake files in the new plugin directory.

Under the parent directory, e.g., CalVR/plugins/calit2/CmakeLists.txt, add the following lines:

OPTION(PLUGIN_EXAMPLEPLUGIN "ExamplePlugin" ON)

IF(PLUGIN_EXAMPLEPLUGIN)
 ADD_SUBDIRECTORY(ExamplePlugin)
ENDIF(PLUGIN_EXAMPLEPLUGIN)

Under parent directory, say CalVR/plugins/calit2/cmake_install.cmake, find:

IF(NOT CMAKE_INSTALL_LOCAL_ONLY)

add the following line (change to absolute path):

INCLUDE("~/CalVR/plugins/calit2/ExamplePlugin/cmake_install.cmake")

Under the new plugin directory you may remove the CMakeFiles folder as well as the old Makefile which were copied from ModelLoader. There should be only two source files and two cmake files left. Modify these files to adapt the new plugin's name.

Launch cmake, delete the cache if necessary, configure and generate again. Note that under the PLUGINS entry, the calit2 checkbox should be on, and you should be able to find your new plugin name under PLUGIN along with the ModelLoader.

Go back to the plugin directory, the new Makefile should have been generated. Type make to build.

Now we need to modify the CalVR/config/config.xml to turn on the new plugin. We can search for ModelLoader and add the exact lines to config.xml, and modify the names to the new plugin's name. Now run CalVR, in the terminal we should see the init message of the new plugin.

COVISE->CalVR Translation Table

COVISE Syntax	CalVR Syntax
using namespace covise	using namespace cvr
COVERPLUGIN(MyPlugin)	CVRPLUGIN(MyPlugin)
bool MyPlugin::init()	bool MyPlugin::init()
void MyPlugin::preFrame()	void MyPlugin::preFrame()
void MyPlugin::postFrame()	void MyPlugin::postFrame()
void MyPlugin::menuEvent(coMenuItem*)	void MyPlugin::menuCallback(MenuItem*)
void MyPlugin::key(int type, int keySym, int mod)	MyPlugin::keyEvent(bool keyDown, int key, int mod)