How to build the eLynx projects?

Last Updated: 4th of April 2009

Main steps to build the projects:

Make sure you have sufficient tools for building,
Download and build wxWidgets library,
Download and configure boost library,
Download the latest sources and build eLynx.

If you have problems building project feel free to contact us.
Send us informations about your os and error messages you are dealing with.

Build for windows

1 - Make sure you have sufficient tools for building

We CAN NOT use VC6, VC7 or VC7.1 due to compiler limitations with templates.

Before trying to build, make sure to have at least Visual Studio 2005 (VC8 or VC9 compiler).

You can use the free Visual Express Edition.

2 - Get and build wxWidgets library

Download wxWidgets for windows vith version 2.8.10: wxMSW-2.8.10.zip.
If the link fails (because the world is changing) go to the web site http://www.wxwidgets.org/ and search manually for it.

Build the wxWidgets library:

Select a place to build the library, I choose : E:\dev.
Unzip wxMSW-2.8.10.zip in this directory, so we get E:\dev\wxMSW-2.8.10.
Go to path E:\dev\wxMSW-2.8.10\build\msw.
Open project wx.dsw with Visual Studio 2005 or 2008, you are asking for conversion, click [Yes to all].
In main menu, Build->Configuration Manager... select Unicode Debug.
In main menu, Build->Build Solution.
In main menu, Build->Configuration Manager... select Unicode Release.
In main menu, Build->Build Solution.

Set an environment variable WXWIN to the wxWidget location:
This is used in eLynx lab project.

On "My computer" invoke contextual menu, select Properties,
In Advanced tab press button Environment Variables, then button New
In field name fill : WXWIN
In field value fill with path : E:\dev\wxMSW-2.8.10, click [OK]

3 - Get boost library

Download the boost_1_38.zip a packaged lib for eLynx,
Unpack the archive somewhere in your development location, for example in E:\dev,
Set up the environment variable BOOST to this path. In our case:BOOST=E:\dev.

Note that for that if you locate accumulators folder in E:\dev\boost\accumulators you must declare BOOST=E:\dev and not BOOST=E:\dev\boost.

4 - Download the eLynx project sources

Get the latest sources from CVS repository at sourceforge (may be unstable).

5 - Build eLynx projects

There are several applications (targets) you can build:
Go to the building place depending on your compiler version:

build\vc8 for Visual Studio 2005
build\vc9 for Visual Studio 2008

Select one of these projects:

sdkV2.sln - basic eLynx SDK testing application, runs number of tests (batch mode).
eLynxLab.sln - eLynx lab wxWidgets based application (GUI, need wxWidgets libraries).

For each you just need to go main menu, Build->Build Solution.

Build for linux

Note that commands are based on Ubuntu 6.10, a Debian distribution.
Please adapt them to your distribution.

1 - Make sure you have sufficient tools for building

Before trying to build make sure to have a good compiler version:

gcc with at least version 4 is required to build eLynx,
scons is required (version 0.96.92 at least).
wxWidgets 2.8.10 library need to be installed to handle cross-platform GUI.
Boost library need to be installed for low level utilities.

To install all tools and dependencies, run:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential
$ sudo apt-get install gcc
$ sudo apt-get install xlibs-static-dev
$ sudo apt-get install scons
$ sudo apt-get install libwxgtk2.8-dev
$ sudo apt-get install libboost
$ sudo apt-get install pkgconfig

2 - Download the eLynx project sources

for team members, get the latest sources from CVS repository at sourceforge (may be unstable).
```
$ cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@elynx.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/elynx co -P eLynx
```
After the command has been run, a new path eLynx has been created. It contains all sources and some datas for testing.

for external developers, get the latest stable sources at sourceforge download page.

3 - Build and run eLynx projects

We do not use usual autoconf/automake tools.
eLynx projects are built using SCons.
Targets are built by invoking scons command in the main eLynx directory.
It's the directory which contains SConscript file.

Here are some examples of using scons command:

builds all targets in debug mode:
```
$ scons
```
builds all targets in release mode:
```
$ scons release=1
```
builds sdkV2 apps in release mode:
```
$ scons release=1 sdkV2
```
cleans the obj files (usually not necessary, as scons takes care about all project dependencies)
```
$ scons -c
```

Be prepared, that compilation to build sdk takes a 'long' time (about 10 min).

All binaries are created in subdirectories:

bin/sconsd for debug mode or,
bin/scons for release mode.

For now, to load image plugins correctly, you have to execute binaries from that directory. There is no installation to some system location, like /usr/local at the moment.

In case you have any problem, post them preferably through the eLynx_sdk forum. Don't forget to mention your linux distribution, gcc version and wxWidgets version (should be 2.8.9).

There are several applications (targets) you can build:

sdkV2: this test eLynx SDK methods in batch mode (no GUI). It runs number of tests to check no regression.
For building sdkV2:
```
$ scons sdkV2
```
For running executable:
```
$ cd bin/sconsd
$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:./
$ ./sdkV2_debug
```
eLynx lab: this is a wxWidgets based application, an user friendly lab for image processing using GUI.
For building eLynx lab:
```
$ scons release=1 eLynx
```
For running executable:
```
$ cd bin/scons
$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:./
$ ./eLynx_release
```