Advanced: Directly Building the Software Framework Using Conan

Warning

This method of compiling Basilisk is not typically required and should only be attempted by advanced users familiar with both conan and cmake. See Building the Software Framework for documentation on the regular build process.

Configuring and Building with conan Commands

Calling conanfile.py with python executes a method that calls two separate conan function to setup and configure process, and build the executable if desired. This section outlines this 2-step build process for those that seek to build it this way.

Note

All commands are called from the Basilisk root directory.

Step 1: Installing Basilisk Dependencies

The first command, in its minimalist form, is:

conan install . -if dist3/conan --build=missing

This conan command will create the distribution folder, dist3 in the above case, if needed, collect all the require Basilisk 3rd party resources and compile them if their binaries are missing. The cmake files to access these 3rd party libraries are stored in dist3/conan.

There are several options that can be provided to this conan install command as shown in the following table. Note that the option names for groupings of Basilisk modules are the same as with the one-step build above.

Options for conan install Step

Option	Values	Default	Description
-o vizInterface	Boolean	True	Include Module: vizInterface in the configuration and build
-o opNav	Boolean	False	Include the OpenCV library dependent Basilisk modules.
-o clean	Boolean	False	Delete the distribution folder before configuring to yield a fresh build
-o buildProject	Boolean	True	Will build the project executable after the configuration step
-s build_type	Release, Debug	Release	Specifies the build type
-o generator	see here	XCode (macOS), Visual Studio 16 2019 (Windows), None (Linux)	Used to specify a specific cmake generator. See discussion in Table Options for One-Step Configure/Build Process.
-o autoKey	String ‘s’ or ‘u’	Empty	This is used to automatically respond to the python packaging installation requests to install the package for the user (u) or system (s).
-o allOptPkg	Boolean	False	Install all of the optional Basilisk python package dependencies

Thus, using the same build example as in the one-step section, to create a build with opNav modes enabled, but no Module: vizInterface, and using a clean distribution folder, and that is built right away, you could use:

conan install . -if dist3/conan --build=missing -o clean=True -o buildProject=True -o opNav=True -o vizInterface=False

Note how much more verbose this is, but it gives you full control if you want to store the compiled binaries and cmake files in directories other than dist3/conan.

Step 2: Creating the IDE Project

The final step is to create the IDE project file and possibly build the executables directly. At this stage there are no options to be provided. This step is done with:

conan build . -if dist3/conan

Warning

If you want the conan build command to automatically compile the code, the buildProject option must be set in the conan install step.

Running cmake Directly

The conan install command must always be run to install the required dependencies and compile them. If the developer wishes, the cmake can be run directly from the dist3 distribution folder instead of relying on the conan build step discussed above.

The following table summarizes the optional Basilisk related flags that can be provided to cmake. If they are not used, then the shown default behaviors are used.

cmake Basilisk Build Flags

cmake Flag	Default	Description
BUILD_VIZINTERFACE	ON	will create Module: vizInterface
BUILD_OPNAV	OFF	will create the OpenCL dependent optical navigation related modules

macOS Example

$ cmake ../src -G Xcode -DBUILD_OPNAV=ON

Linux Example

$ cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ../src

Windows Examples

• Example direct build on Windows:

  cmake -G "Visual Studio <MSVC Version> <MSVC Product Year> Win<arch>" ../src -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
  cmake --build . --target ALL_BUILD --config Release
  

• Example cmake commands using x86:

  cmake -G "Visual Studio <MSVC Version> <MSVC Product Year> Win32" ../src -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
  

  MSVC Mapping

  MSVC Product Year	MSVC Version
  2022	17
  2019	16
  2017	15.9
  	15.8
  	15.7
  	15.6
  	15.5
  	15.4 - 15.3
  	15.2 - 15.0
  2015	14
  2013	12
  2012	11

Example build commands for Arch x86, MSVC Year 2017, MSVC Version 15:

cmake -G “Visual Studio 15 2017 Win32” ../src

Example build commands forArch x64, MSVC Year 2019, MSVC Version 16:

cmake -G “Visual Studio 16 2019” -A x64 ../src -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

cmake -G “Visual Studio 15 2017 Win64” ../src -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release