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Compilation of CloudCompare 2.13+

1. Base dependencies

CloudCompare requires CMake to be built.

The main dependency of CloudCompare is Qt. CloudCompare 2.13+ requires 5.12 <= Qt < 6.0.

  • On Windows it is recommended to use the installer from the Qt website.
  • On macOs you can also use the installer from Qt's website, or use homebrew.
  • On Linux it is recommended to use your distribution's package manager:

Debian/ubuntu package names:

libqt5svg5-dev libqt5opengl5-dev qt5-default qttools5-dev qttools5-dev-tools libqt5websockets5-dev

2. Cloning

The command to clone CloudCompare is:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/cloudcompare/CloudCompare.git

The --recursive is important as CloudCompare uses Git's submodules system to 'vendor' external libraries or plugins.

3. CMake Configuration

When doing a basic build of CloudCompare, the only CMake arguments that is required is the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH to tell CMake where to find your Qt installation.

This is only required on Windows and macOs as on Linux Qt is installed in a standard location that CMake will find.

You can also use the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX to customize the path where CloudCompare will be installed.

If you use CMake-GUI the options are the same, you just enter the values in the GUI.

Example:

# Windows
mkdir build & cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=C:\Qt\5.15.2\msvc2019_64 ..

# macOs
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/usr/local/opt/qt@5 ..

# Linux
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..

You can always take a look at how CloudCompare is being build on GitHub's CI

4. Build

# Still in the build folder
cmake --build .

5. Install

# Still in the build folder
cmake --install .

Optional features and plugins

CloudCompare has a bunch of optional features and plugins not built by default. Below you will find a list of these options/plugins. To add an option to CMake use the -DMY_OPTION=ON syntax. Example, to build the qEDL plugin, add -DPLUGIN_GL_QEDL=ON argument to CMake at the configuration step.

The optional features are:

CMake Option Default Value Description
OPTION_BUILD_CCVIEWER ON Whether or not to build the ccViewer side project.
OPTION_USE_SHAPE_LIB ON Use the vendored shapelib to add support for SHP files.
OPTION_USE_DXF_LIB ON Use the vendored dxflib to add support for DXF files.
OPTION_USE_GDAL OFF Add support for a lot of raster files in CloudCompare/ccViewer with GDAL library.

The following options are Windows-only:

CMake Option Default Value Description
OPTION_MP_BUILD OFF Visual Studio only (multi-process build --> much faster but uses a lot of CPU power)
OPTION_SUPPORT_3D_CONNEXION_DEVICES OFF 3D mouses handling
OPTION_USE_OCULUS_SDK OFF Build with Oculus SDK (LibOVR) support.
OPTION_USE_VISUAL_LEAK_DETECTOR OFF To use the Visual Leak Detector library for MSVC (http://vld.codeplex.com/)

The available plugins are

GL Plugins

Plugin Name CMake Option Default Value Description
qEDL PLUGIN_GL_QEDL OFF
qSSAO PLUGIN_GL_QSSAO OFF

IO Plugins

Plugin Name CMake Option Default Value Description
qAdditionalIO PLUGIN_IO_QADDITIONAL OFF
qCoreIO PLUGIN_IO_QCORE ON
qCSVMatrixIO PLUGIN_IO_QCSV_MATRIX OFF Add support for CSV matrix files.
qDraco PLUGIN_IO_QDRACO OFF Add support force draco files
qE57IO PLUGIN_IO_QE57 OFF Add support for e57 files using libE57.
qFBXIO PLUGIN_IO_QFBX OFF Add support for AutoDesk FBX files using the official FBX SDK
qLASFWIO PLUGIN_IO_QLAS_FWF OFF Windows only. Support for LAS/LAZ with and without waveform using LIBlas (deprecated, consider using qLASIO instead).
qLASIO PLUGIN_IO_QLAS OFF Support for LAS/LAZ with and without waveform (all platforms) using LASZIP.
qPDALIO PLUGIN_IO_QPDAL OFF Add support for LAS/LAZ files using PDAL (deprecated, consider using qLASIO instead).
qPhotoscanIO PLUGIN_IO_QPHOTOSCAN OFF
qRDBIO PLUGIN_IO_QRDB OFF Add support for RDB.
qStepCADImport PLUGIN_IO_QSTEP OFF Add support for STEP files.

Standard Plugins

Plugin Name CMake Option Default Value Description
q3DMASC PLUGIN_STANDARD_3DMASC OFF Automatic point cloud classification: https://lidar.univ-rennes.fr/en/3dmasc
qAnimation PLUGIN_STANDARD_QANIMATION OFF Plugin to create videos: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/Animation_(plugin).
qBroom PLUGIN_STANDARD_QBROOM OFF Interactive cloud cleaning tool: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/Virtual_broom_(plugin)
qCanupo PLUGIN_STANDARD_QCANUPO OFF Automatic point cloud classification: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/CANUPO_(plugin)
qCloudLayers PLUGIN_STANDARD_QCLOUDLAYERS OFF Manual point cloud classification/labelling: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/QCloudLayers_(plugin)
qColorimetricSegmenter PLUGIN_STANDARD_QCOLORIMETRIC_SEGMENTER OFF Point cloud color-based segmentation: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/Colorimetric_Segmenter_(plugin)
qCompass PLUGIN_STANDARD_QCOMPASS OFF Digitization of geological structures and structural traces on point clouds: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/Compass_(plugin)
qCork PLUGIN_STANDARD_QCORK OFF Mesh Boolean Operations: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/Cork_(plugin)
qCSF PLUGIN_STANDARD_QCSF OFF Automatic ground/non-ground classification: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/CSF_(plugin)
qFacets PLUGIN_STANDARD_QFACETS OFF Structural geology plugin: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/Facets_(plugin)
qHoughNormals PLUGIN_STANDARD_QHOUGH_NORMALS OFF Normals computation: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/HoughNormals_(plugin)
qHPR PLUGIN_STANDARD_QHPR OFF Hidden Point Removal: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/Hidden_Point_Removal_(plugin)
qJSonRPCPlugin PLUGIN_STANDARD_QJSONRPC OFF Json/RPC control plugin
qM3C2 PLUGIN_STANDARD_QM3C2 OFF Robust point cloud distances computation: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/M3C2_(plugin)
qMasonry Segmentation of masonry structures: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/Masonry_Segmentation_(plugin)
- qAutoSeg PLUGIN_STANDARD_MASONRY_QAUTO_SEG OFF
- qManualSeg PLUGIN_STANDARD_MASONRY_QMANUAL_SEG OFF
qMeshBoolean PLUGIN_STANDARD_QMESH_BOOLEAN OFF Mesh Boolean Operations: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/Mesh_Boolean_(plugin)
qMPlane PLUGIN_STANDARD_QMPLANE OFF Normal distance measurements against a defined plane: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/MPlane_(plugin)
qPCL PLUGIN_STANDARD_QPCL OFF Interface to some algorithms of the PCL library: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/Point_Cloud_Library_Wrapper_(plugin)
qPCV PLUGIN_STANDARD_QPCV OFF Ambient Occlusion for meshes or point clouds: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/ShadeVis_(plugin)
qPoissonRecon PLUGIN_STANDARD_QPOISSON_RECON OFF Surface Mesh Reconstruction: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/Poisson_Surface_Reconstruction_(plugin)
qRANSAC_SD PLUGIN_STANDARD_QRANSAC_SD OFF Automatic RANSAC shape detection: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/RANSAC_Shape_Detection_(plugin)
qSRA PLUGIN_STANDARD_QSRA OFF Surface of Revolution Analysis: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/Surface_of_Revolution_Analysis_(plugin)
qTreeIso PLUGIN_STANDARD_QTREEISO OFF Individual Tree Isolation: https://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php/Treeiso_(plugin)

Additional Instructions

Some plugins do not have their dependencies vendored in CloudCompare's repo, thus they require additional steps to install them. This section aims to document the steps for these plugins.

qAnimation

The qAnimation plugin has an additional option QANIMATION_WITH_FFMPEG_SUPPORT to be able to create movies with FFMPEG.

qE57IO

If you want to compile CloudCompare (and ccViewer) with LibE57 files support, you'll need:

  1. Xerces-C++ multi-thread static libraries

    • On Ubuntu install the package libxerces-c-dev
    • On Visual C++ (Windows):
      1. select the Static Debug or Static Release configurations
      2. you'll have to manually modify the XercesLib project options so that the C/C++ > Code Generation > Runtime Library are of DLL type in both release and debug modes (i.e. /MD in release or /MDd in debug)
      3. for 64 bits version be sure to select the right platform (x64 instead of Win32). If you use Visual Studio Express 2010, be sure also that the toolset (in the project properties) is set to something like Windows7.1SDK
    • only the XercesLib project neet to be compiled
    • eventually, CMake will look for the resulting files in /include (instead of /src) and /lib (without the Release or Debug subfolders). By default the visual project will put them in /Build/WinXX/VCXX/StaticXXX. Therefore you should create a custom folder with the right organization and copy the files there.

  2. LibE57 (last tested version: 2.0.1 on Windows)

    • Checkout the submodule in plugins/core/IO/qE57IO/extern/libE57Format or download and extract the latest libE57Format release

qPCL

qPCL relies on the PCL library. Follow the instructions from their website PCL.

qFBXIO

If you want to compile CloudCompare (and ccViewer) with FBX files support, you'll need: The official Autodesk's FBX SDK (last tested version: 2015.1 on Windows)

Then, the CloudCompare CMake project will request that you set the 3 following variables:

  1. FBX_SDK_INCLUDE_DIR: FBX SDK include directory (pretty straightforward ;)
  2. FBX_SDK_LIBRARY_FILE: main FBX SDK library (e.g. libfbxsdk-md.lib)
  3. FBX_SDK_LIBRARY_FILE_DEBUG: main FBX SDK library for debug mode (if any)

qLASIO

If you want to compile CloudCompare (and ccViewer) with LAS/LAZ files support, you'll need LASZip.

qPDALIO [deprecated]

If you want to compile the deprecated PDAL I/O plugin to load LAS/LAZ files, you'll need PDAL.

qLASFWIO [deprecated]

The deprecated LAS FWF I/O plugin can also be compiled on Windows with LASlib.

You'll have to set the following variables:

  • LASLIB_INCLUDE_DIR: LAStools/LASlib/inc
  • LASZIP_INCLUDE_DIR: LAStools/LASzip/src
  • LASLIB_RELEASE_LIBRARY or LASLIB_DEBUG_LIBRARY, depending on build type: the compiled library, e.g. LAStools/LASlib/VC14/lib/x64/LASlibVC14.lib

GDAL support

If you want to compile CloudCompare (and ccViewer) with GDAL (raster) files support, you'll need a compiled version of the GDAL library (last tested version: 2.2.1 on Windows, 2.0.2 on Mac OS X)

Then, the CloudCompare CMake project will request that you set the following variables:

  1. GDAL_INCLUDE_DIR: GDAL include directory (pretty straightforward ;)
  2. GDAL_LIBRARY: the static library (e.g. gdal_i.lib)
  3. GDAL_BIN_DIR: on Windows, the folder with DLL files

qCork + MPIR support

If you want to compile the qCork plugin (on Windows only for now), you'll need:

  1. MPIR 2.6.0
  2. the forked version of the Cork library for CC: https://github.com/cloudcompare/cork
    • on Windows see the Visual project shipped with this fork and corresponding to your version (if any ;)
    • for VS2013 just edit the mpir property sheet (in the Properties manager) and update the MPIR macro (in the User macros tab)

Then, the CloudCompare CMake project will request that you set the following variables:

  1. CORK_INCLUDE_DIR and MPIR_INCLUDE_DIR: both libraries include directories (pretty straightforward ;)

  2. CORK_RELEASE_LIBRARY_FILE and MPIR_RELEASE_LIBRARY_FILE: both main library files

  3. and optionally CORK_DEBUG_LIBRARY_FILE and MPIR_DEBUG_LIBRARY_FILE: both main library files (for debug mode)

  4. Make sure you have a C++11 compliant compiler (gcc 4.7+ / clang / Visual 2013 and newer)

To compile the project with older versions of Qt (from 4.8 to 5.4) or with a non C++11 compliant compiler, you'll have to stick with the https://github.com/cloudcompare/CloudCompare/releases/tag/v2.6.3.1 version

  1. Last but not least, the CMAKE group contains a CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX variable which is where CloudCompare and ccViewer will be installed (when you compile the INSTALL project)
  • On Linux, default install dir is /usr/local (be sure to have administrative rights if you want to install CloudCompare there: once configured, you can call # make install from the sources directory)
  • On Windows 7/8/10 CMake doesn't have the rights to 'install' files in the Program Files folder (even though it's CMake's default installation destination!)

Other things

linux

With versions of CMake prior to 3.13, the compiled application might not work for all users (due to some libraries being linked from the /usr/local directory). See CloudCompare#1680.

macOs

If you are compiling and running locally, add -DCC_MAC_DEV_PATHS to the CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS in the CMAKE group. This will look for the plugins in your build directory rather than the application bundle. If you need the shaders as well, you will have to create a shaders folder in the build directory and copy the shaders you need into it.

Working with Visual Studio on Windows

As all the files (executables, plugins and other DLLs) must be copied in the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX directory prior to execution, the standard project launch/debug mechanism is broken. Therefore, by default you won't be able to 'run' the CloudCompare or ccViewer projects as is (with F5 or Ctrl + F5 for instance).

See this post on the CloudCompare forum to setup Visual Studio correctly.

Debugging plugins

If you want to use or debug plugins in DEBUG mode while using a single configuration compiler/IDE (gcc, etc.) the you'll have to comment the automatic definition of the QT_NO_DEBUG macro in '/plugins/CMakePluginTpl.cmake' (see http://www.cloudcompare.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2070).

If you wish to specify a custom directory to search for plugins, shaders, or translations, you may set the CC_PLUGIN_PATH, CC_SHADER_PATH, and CC_TRANSLATION_PATH environment variables. The paths may be relative to the current working directory or absolute.