Development Environment

2. Development Environment#

These are some generic tips that might be handy when setting up your own development environment.

2.1. Visual Studio 2022/2026#

  • Visual Studio installs typically bundle almost everything you need to build OpenSim Creator (excl. Python).

  • The OpenSim Creator build uses CMakePresets.json files for both the main build (in the repository root) and the dependencies build (in third_party/). Visual Studio natively understands how to load folders containing these files, and should automatically present each preset as a user-selectable configuration (e.g. Development and Release will be listed as options).

  • If you want to build OpenSim Creator via the Visual Studio UI, then you should:

    • Clone the OpenSim Creator GitHub repository (https://github.com/ComputationalBiomechanicsLab/opensim-creator) via the Visual Studio UI. Close it after cloning (after cloning, you need to open third_party because the main build depends on things installed by the third_party build).

    • Open third_party/ as a folder in VS, which should configure the dependencies build with a preset from CMakePresets.json (you can change which via a dropdown at the top of the VS UI).

    • Build the third-party dependencies, which should install the dependencies in a preset location within the OpenSim Creator build directory

    • Open the top-level opensim-creator folder in VS. CMake should configure it without any errors. Note: you need to use the same configuration for both the dependencies and main build.

  • If you want to build OpenSim Creator via the terminal, then you should:

    • Open a terminal (cmd.exe) window

    • Run git clone https://github.com/ComputationalBiomechanicsLab/opensim-creator to get a copy of OpenSim Creator’s sourcecode

    • cd opensim-creator

    • Activate the Visual Studio development environment by running call scripts\env_vs-x64.bat. This gives the terminal access to tools like cmake, ninja, cl, etc.

    • cd third_party && cmake --workflow --preset Development && cd ... This builds the third-party dependencies with the Development preset. See CMakePresets.json for a list of available presets, and beware that the preset must match the main build’s preset.

    • cmake --workflow --preset Development in the opensim-creator directory, which will build OpenSim Creator

    • After this, you have a complete build. You can (e.g.) open the directory in Visual Studio and start developing.

  • When working in the Visual Studio UI:

    • Use the Switch between solutions and available views button in the Solution Explorer hierarchy tab to switch to the CMake Targets View

    • Right-click the osc CMake target and Set As Startup Project, so that pressing F5 will then build+run osc.exe

    • (optional): switch the solution explorer view to a Folder View after doing this: the CMake view is crap for developing OpenSim Creator

    • You should now be able to build+run osc from Visual Studio

    • To run tests, open the Test Explorer tab, which should list all of the googletest tests in the project.

2.1.1. Note: Debugging on Visual Studio#

googletest catches and reports Windows SEH exceptions. This is handy when (e.g.) running the test suites from a commandline, where you probably just want a report saying which ones have failed, but it is problematic if you specifically are running the test suite to debug a runtime error that the test is exercising.

To disable this behavior, you have to provide --gtest_catch_exceptions=0 to the test suite executable. In Visual Studio you can do this by:

  • Setting the executable as your startup (F5 et. al.) project

  • Then go to Debug > Debug and Launch Settings for testopensimcreator.exe (for example)

  • And then add an args element to the configurations list

Example:

Listing 2.1 config.json#
{
  "version": "0.2.1",
  "defaults": {},
  "configurations": [
    {
      "type": "default",
      "project": "CMakeLists.txt",
      "projectTarget": "testopensimcreator.exe (tests\\testopensimcreator\\testopensimcreator.exe)",
      "name": "testopensimcreator.exe (tests\\testopensimcreator\\testopensimcreator.exe)",
      "args": [
        "--gtest_catch_exceptions=0"
      ]
    }
  ]
}