Introduction

ParaView-Superbuild, henceforth referred to as "superbuild", is a project to build ParaView and its dependencies. ParaView itself can be easily built using CMake as long as the required external dependencies are available on the build machine. However, ParaView's several external dependencies, e.g. Qt, CGNS, FFMPEG, etc. can be very tedious to build. Also, if you want to generate redistributable binaries, you need to take extra care when building and packaging these dependencies. To make our lives easier in supporting both these use-cases, the superbuild project was born.

Although primarily designed to build the official ParaView binaries, the superbuild has since been regularly used to build and install ParaView on various supercomputing systems.

Obtaining the source

To obtain the superbuild source locally, clone this repository using Git.

$ git clone --recursive https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview-superbuild.git

Building

The superbuild can be built with a Makefiles or Ninja CMake generator. The IDE generators (Xcode and Visual Studio) are not supported.

Building a specific version

The superbuild project uses the same versioning scheme as ParaView, and gets tagged for every release of ParaView. For example, to build ParaView version 5.4.1, checkout the v5.4.1 tag of ParaView and superbuild.

Currently available tags are shown here.

To checkout a specific tag from the superbuild git repository:

$ cd paraview-superbuild
$ git fetch origin # ensure you have the latest state from the main repo
$ git checkout v5.4.1 # replace `v5.4.1` with tag name of your choice
$ git submodule update

At this point, your superbuild has all of the rules that were used when building the selected version of ParaView. Also, note that it's possible to build a version of ParaView using a different superbuild version. For example, you could use superbuild v5.4.1, to build the latest master (i.e., development) version of ParaView, or a custom branch. This is done by first checking out the superbuild for the appropriate version and then setting the CMake variables that affect which ParaView source is to be used. There are several ways to control how superbuild finds its source packages:

1. If you want to use git to checkout ParaView source (default), then set paraview_SOURCE_SELECTION to git, ensure paraview_GIT_REPOSITORY is pointing to the ParaView git repository you want to clone (by default it is set to the offical ParaView repository) and then set the paraview_GIT_TAG to be a specific tagname or branch available for the selected git repository. Use master for latest development code, v5.4.1 for the 5.4.1 release, release for latest stable release, or a specific ParaView commit SHA. In this setup, when building the superbuild, it will clone and checkout the appropriate revision from the ParaView git repository automatically.
2. Instead of letting superbuild do the cloning and updating of the ParaView source, you can also manually check it out and keep it updated as needed. To use this configuration, set paraview_SOURCE_SELECTION to source, and set paraview_SOURCE_DIR to point to a custom ParaView source tree. See 'offline builds' below for instructions to download needed dependency packages.
3. Another option is to use a source tarball of a ParaView release. For that, set paraview_SOURCE_SELECTION to the version to build such as 5.4.1. The superbuild offers the lastest stable release as well as release candidate in preparation for the release. This is the best way to build a released version of ParaView.

NOTE: If you switch to a superbuild version older than 5.2, the instructions described on this page are not relevant since the superbuild was refactored and changed considerably for 5.2. For older versions, refer to instructions on the Wiki.

ALSO NOTE: Since this README is expected to be updated for each version, once you checkout a specfic version, you may want to refer to the README for that specific version.

Incremental builds

The superbuild is kind of naïve for changes to project sources within the superbuild. This is due to the superbuild not tracking all source files for each project and instead only "stamp files" to indicate the steps performed.

When changing the source of a subproject, the best solution is to delete the "stamp file" for the build step of that project:

$ rm superbuild/project/stamp/project-build

and to rerun the superbuild's build step.

Projects and Features

The superbuild contains multiple projects which may be used to enable different features within the resulting ParaView build. Most projects involve downloading and adding the feature to the resulting package, but there are a few which are used just to enable features within ParaView itself.

The catalyst and paraview projects are mutually exclusive (the libraries conflict in the install tree). One of these two projects must be enabled. The catalyst package is only available on Linux.

The paraviewsdk project enables the building of a package which includes headers and libraries suitable for developing against ParaView. It is only available on Linux (at the moment).

The paraviewweb project adds web services into the resulting package.

The paraviewgettingstartedguide, and paraviewtutorialdata packages add startup documentation and example data to the package.

ParaView supports multiple rendering engines including egl, mesa, osmesa, and qt5. All of these are incompatible with each other. If none of these are chosen, a UI-less ParaView will be built (basically just pvpython). On Windows and macOS, only the qt5 rendering engine is available.

The python package is available to enable Python support in the package. In addition, the matplotlib and numpy packages are available.

The following packages enable other features within ParaView:

• adios: Enable readers and writers for visualization data in the ADIOS file format.
• boxlib: Enable reading the boxlib3D file format.
• las: Enable reading the LAS file format
• cosmotools: Enables Cosmo file format readers and related filters and algorithms.
• ffmpeg: Video encoding library for macOS and Linux.
• ospray: A ray tracing rendering backend from Intel.
• silo: Support reading the silo file format.
• tbb: Improved parallel processing support within various VTK and ParaView filters and algorithms.
• visitbridge: Enables readers for file formats provided from the VisIt project.
• vortexfinder2: A collection of tools to visualize and analyze vortices.
• vrpn: Virtual reality support.
• 'vtkm': VTK-m Accelerator Filters
• xdmf3: A meta file format built on top of HDF5.

Offline builds

The superbuild has a download-all target that will download all of the files from the network that are necessary for the currently configured build. By default, they are placed into the downloads directory of the build tree. This superbuild-plus-downloads tree may then be copied to a non-networked machine and pointed at using the superbuild_download_location variable (or placed in the default location).

Installing

The superbuild supports the install target by selecting a template package using the SUPERBUILD_DEFAULT_INSTALL variable. The default and availability depends on the platform and selected projects, but valid values for this include:

• paraview/ZIP
• paraview/DragNDrop
• paraview/TGZ
• paraview/TXZ
• catalyst/TGZ
• catalyst/TXZ
• paraviewsdk/TGZ
• paraviewsdk/TXZ

The CMake cache editors (ccmake and cmake-gui) have dropdown options for the supported options.

The selected package logic will be used to install ParaView and its dependencies into CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX rather than being placed into a package. For example, the DragNDrop generator creates .app bundles which will be created whereas the TGZ, TXZ, and ZIP generators use the standard bin/, lib/, etc. directories.

Caveats

If using the git source selection for ParaView, the build will rerun when using the install target due to limitations in the external project mechanisms and the way CPack works. There are two ways to avoid this:

• the SUPERBUILD_OFFLINE_BUILD option may be set to ON to unlink the git update step from the configure/build steps; or
• the initial build can just be run using the install target instead of the usual make && make install pattern.

External plugins

The superbuild supports building more plugins into ParaView using the paraviewexternalplugins project. As an example, to build two external plugins a and b, the following settings should be used:

• ENABLE_paraviewexternalplugins:BOOL=ON: Enables building using external plugins.
• paraview_PLUGINS_EXTERNAL:STRING=a;b: The list of plugins to build.
• paraview_PLUGIN_a_PATH:PATH=/path/to/plugin/a: The path to plugin a's source directory. It must contain a plugins.cmake to be picked up by ParaView.
• paraview_PLUGIN_b_PATH:PATH=/path/to/plugin/b: Same as above, but for plugin b.

CMake Variables

Style Guide

Note that currently not all project and configuration variables follow this style guide but any new projects should use this convention while any existing projects and configuration variables will transition to this over time.

• All references to a given project name will be lowercase.
• Underscores will be used as word seperators in variable names.
• All project specific configuration variables will be lower-case project name followed by upper-case setting name. Examples include:
  • mesa_USE_SWR : Enable the OpenSWR driver for (OS)Mesa.
  • ospray_BUILD_ISA : Select the SIMD architecture used to build OSPray.
• Internal variables used within a given project's projectname.cmake file will be all lower-case.
• Multiple versions:
  • Use the superbuild_set_selectable_source macro to allow multiple versions of a given project.
  • Specify source selection versions as numeric, i.e. without any "v" or "V" prefix.
  • If the project is going through a release candidate cycle, add the available RCs as additional sources as they become availabe. Once a final release is made, replace all the RCs with the updated release.

Build Variables

• superbuild_download_location (default ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/downloads): The location to store downloaded source artifacts. Usually, it is changed so that it is preserved across a wipe of the build directory.
• SUPERBUILD_PROJECT_PARALLELISM (default based on the number of available processors): When using a Makefiles generator, subproject builds use -j explicitly with this number.
• ENABLE_xxx (generally, default OFF): If selected, the xxx project will be built within the superbuild. See above for descriptions of the various projects. ENABLE_ flags are not shown for projects which must be enabled due to a project depending on it (e.g., visitbridge requires boost, so enabling visitbridge will hide the ENABLE_boost option).
• USE_SYSTEM_xxx (default OFF): If selected, the xxx project from the build environment is used instead of building it within the superbuild. Not all projects support system copies (the flag is not available if so).

The following flags affect ParaView directly:

• paraview_SOURCE_SELECTION (default 5.4.1): The source to use for ParaView itself. The version numbers use the source tarballs from the website for the release. The source selection uses the paraview_SOURCE_DIR variable to look at a checked out ParaView source directory. The git selection has the superbuild clone and builds a checkout of ParaView from git repository controlled by the paraview_GIT_REPOSITORY and paraview_GIT_TAG variables. By default, the master branch of the main repository is used.

  Note: When using the source selection, incremental builds to the superbuild may not rebuild ParaView even if the source tree has changed. This is because the superbuild is "blind" to the source tree other than its existence.

• CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE_paraview (default is the same as the superbuild): ParaView may be built with a different build type (e.g., Release vs. RelWithDebInfo) as the rest of the superbuild using this variable.

• PARAVIEW_BUILD_WEB_DOCUMENTATION (default OFF): Have ParaView build its HTML documentation.

• mesa_USE_SWR (default ON): If mesa is enabled, this enables Intel's software rasterization backend (x86 only).

• PARAVIEW_INITIALIZE_MPI_ON_CLIENT (default ON): If mpi is enabled, this enables MPI to be initialized automatically when running the GUI or pvpython. Some readers use MPI IO and thus must have MPI initialized in order to be used so this is the default for general ease of use. For some MPI implementations, a code that initializes MPI must be run with the appropriate mpi launcher (e.g. mpirun) which in this case it may be desirable to disable this option. Note that the --mpi or --no-mpi command line options to paraview and pvpython can be used to override this option.

The following flags affect Catalyst:

• PARAVIEW_CATALYST_EDITION (default Essentials): The edition of Catalyst to build (also available: Extras and Rendering-Base).
• PARAVIEW_CATALYST_PYTHON (default ON): Enable Python support in Catalyst.

Packaging Variables

• PARAVIEW_PACKAGE_SUFFIX (default based on selected options): The suffix for the name generated by the package.
• paraview_PLUGINS_AUTOLOAD: List of plugins to autoload in the packaged ParaView.

Packaging

The packages may be built using the cpack-paraview tests via ctest. The easiest way to build all available packages is to run ctest -R cpack.

Learning Resources

• General information is available at the ParaView Homepage.

• Community discussion takes place on the ParaView Mailing Lists.

• Commercial support and training are available from Kitware.

Reporting Bugs

If you have found a bug:

1. If you have a patch, please read the CONTRIBUTING.md document.

2. Otherwise, please join one of the ParaView Mailing Lists and ask about the expected and observed behaviors to determine if it is really a bug.

3. Finally, if the issue is not resolved by the above steps, open an entry in the ParaView Issue Tracker.

License

Like ParaView, ParaView-Superbuild is distributed under the OSI-approved BSD 3-clause License. See Copyright.txt for details. For additional licenses, refer to ParaView Licenses.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for instructions to contribute.