OVT Installation under UNIX

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   * Introduction
   * Java notes
   * OpenGL/Mesa notes
   * VTK notes
   * OVT Installation
   * Platform specific tips

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Introduction

     Possibility to install OVT2 is depending mainly on support for VTK
     and Java for your system. VTK should run on major UNIX platforms.
     Availability of Java ports could be checked on
     http://java.sun.com/

General steps are

  1. Install Java (JDK or JRE if you will not do any Java programming)
  2. Install OpenGL or Mesa
  3. Install VTK with Java support
  4. Install OVT2

Steps 1-3 are described in the proper documentation.

Java notes

     Software should work on both JDK 1.1 and 1.2. When using JDK 1.1
     be sure to have SWING 1.1.1 (http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/)
     installed. Swing 1.1 has some bugs preventing software from
     working correctly. As far as Java part of OVT2 is distributed in
     form of jar file, you may probably have no need in using JDK and
     can use only JRE. We used only SUN's implementations of Java, but
     it should be no problem to use IBM's or other Java
     implementations.

OpenGL/Mesa notes

     If you have OpenGL then you should use it, otherwise use Mesa
     (http://www.mesa3d.org/). Mesa works faster on Xfree86-4 because
     of GLX support. It is possible to run OVT to a remote X-display
     bud depending on server/display configuration
     performance/stability could differ seriously. Please refer to
     platform specific tips for more details.

VTK notes

     Good point to start looking at VTK is VTK Homepage
     (http://www.kitware.org/vtk.html).

     Download VTK sources from VTK Homepage
     (http://www.kitware.org/vtk.html). Installing VTK with Java
     support is more complicated ;-) The most important moments are to
     modify thread support for some systems (FreeBSD, Linux) and to
     link VTK Java library with extra C++ libraries. If you will be
     using VTK only for OVT/Java then disable TCL and Python support
     because of timing. For details please refer to VTK documentation
     and our VTK page (http://ovt.irfu.se/vtk/)

OVT Installation

Setting OVT_HOME and JAVA_HOME

     For the installation under UNIX you need to unpack ovt2g.tar.gz or
     ovt2g.tar.Z into installation directory (default is /usr/local).
     If directory is different from /usr/local, then you should modify
     OVT_HOME in ovt2g/bin/ovt. java should in the PATH or JAVA_HOME
     should be defined, otherwise you should set JAVA_HOME in
     ovt2g/bin/ovt.

Setting VTK

     Be sure that VTK in your CLASSPATH and VTK libraries are in the
     linker path. If it is not so then set VTK_CLASSPATH to VTK
     classpath and VTK_LIBS to /path/to/vtk/lib in
     $OVT_HOME/bin/ovt.sh. On my workstation I do

     VTK_CLASSPATH=/data/soft; (directory containing vtk.jar or dir
     vtk/ with files.class)
     VTK_LIBS=/usr/local/lib; (directory containing libvtkJava.so)

     Note: Be sure that VTK is installed correctly and really works!
     You should be able to run test:
     vtk -test
     You should see a blue sphere, if not then VTK is not working.

Compiling OVT2 libraries and binaries

     Cd to $OVT_HOME/src and run configure script and run make SYSTEM
     (where SYSTEM is freebsd, solaris or linux) or modify the default
     Makefile. Run make all install
     Note: In the future releases we will transfer all the C code into
     Java.

UNIX shared multiuser installation

     To run program properly user should have write permissions to OVT
     configuration and data directories. To avoid interaction between
     users it is possible to setups a personal installation. To do so
     run $OVT_HOME/bin/ovt.sh -install. It will copy all the necessary
     data to $HOME/ovt2g and then will use only personal data and
     configuration files.

Running OVT2

     You can invoke OVT2 by running $OVT_HOME/bin/ovt.

Platform specific tips

     For the moment we have seen OVT working on the following
     platforms:

        * FreeBSD/i386 3.4 STABLE with XFree86-4.0
        * Solaris 7 (Sparc)
        * Solaris 2.6 (x86)
        * Windows 98

FreeBSD

     We used JDK1.1.8 (http://www.FreeBSD.org/java/) with TYA 1.7 JIT
     and Swing 1.1.1. JIT gives a good performance improvement. ShuJIT
     was crashing.

     XFree86-4 seedups graphics performance because of GLX rendering
     (you'll need a GLX module started in XF86Config)

     To building VTK you'll need to make some patches. Please refer to
     our page on VTK (http://ovt.irfu.se/vtk/) for instruction.

Solaris x86

     We used JDK 1.2 (http://java.sun.com/jdk/)

     VTK compiled with GCC 2.8, Mesa 3.0

     With this configuration is possible to run OVT2 to a remote
     X-display, but performance is pure comparing to local display.

Solaris Sparc

     We use SUN Ultra 60 with Elite 3D graphics and 512 Mb Ram. This is
     a good configuration is you want the software "to fly" ;-)

     JDK 1.2.2 (http://java.sun.com/jdk/)

     VTK compiled with SUN Workshop 5 C++ compiler (GCC failed to
     compile some Solaris X include files) and SUN's OpenGL. Be sure to
     install all patches to Workshop compilers and OpenGL. Solaris 7
     option -sparcv9 for 64 bit libraries produced crashing code. I
     have no explanation eather it should be so or it is because of
     some patches missing, etc.

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Copyright © 2000, OVT Team. All rights reserved.

ovt.irfu.se/docs/INSTALL.html
last modified on Wednesday, 12-Apr-2000 16:21:55 CEST
