Building a new version of FreeCAD and OpenCASCADE is always a lot of fun…
These two projects are constantly evolving, but almost never ‘in sync’.
In December a new version of the OpenCASCADE library was released – 6.5.2. It solves several bugs and looked like a good reason to build a newer version of FreeCAD in the process. And this is where the fun begins! 
Building OpenCASCADE
Building the new version of OpenCASCADE was straightforward. I just needed to update the patch to get it to build with SlackBuilds.org’s version of ftgl and test my patience – as it takes more than two hours to build on my Virtual machine. But after some fiddling around, I had a package.
Time to do some testing and trying to build FreeCAD against it!
Building FreeCAD
I decided to try the latest “stable” version of FreeCAD – 0.12.5284. The FreeCAD developers have not created any new source tarballs for a while, so I had to get the SVN revision 5284. I uploaded the tarball I created from that revision to my site so that everyone can create the same stable version.
I soon noticed that they solved all the problems I had with building against OpenCASCADE 6.5.1 some time ago, so I was able to remove that patch.
But then I ran against a new problem:
error: no matching function for call to 'BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace::BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace(Handle_Geom_Plane&, double, double&, double, double&)'
Reading the release notes of 6.5.2 I found out that the BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace function now needs an extra parameter:
BRepLib_MakeFace has been modified to accept tolerance value for resolution of degenerated
edges. This tolerance parameter has no default value (to ensure that the client code takes care of
passing some meaningful value, not just Precision::Confusion), so some porting overheads
are expected.
So, it doesn’t have a default value. But what was the default before?
I read through the documentation and found that previously the default was Precision::Confusion():
A default tolerance (Precision::Confusion()) is given to the face,
this tolerance may be increased during construction of the face
using various algorithms.
I tried to add this default to the function call and … it worked!
Trying to compile the rest of FreeCAD I found several other locations in the source with the same problem, resulting in this patch:
--- FreeCAD-0.12.5284/src/Mod/Part/App/AppPartPy.cpp 2012-01-02 16:32:09.000000000 -0200
+++ FreeCAD-0.12.5284_patched/src/Mod/Part/App/AppPartPy.cpp 2012-01-02 21:36:18.000000000 -0200
@@ -492,7 +492,7 @@
d.SetCoord(vec.x, vec.y, vec.z);
}
Handle_Geom_Plane aPlane = new Geom_Plane(p, d);
- BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace Face(aPlane, 0.0, length, 0.0, width);
+ BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace Face(aPlane, 0.0, length, 0.0, width, Precision::Confusion());
return new TopoShapeFacePy(new TopoShape((Face.Face())));
}
catch (Standard_DomainError) {
--- FreeCAD-0.12.5284/src/Mod/Part/App/GeometrySurfacePyImp.cpp 2012-01-02 16:32:09.000000000 -0200
+++ FreeCAD-0.12.5284_patched/src/Mod/Part/App/GeometrySurfacePyImp.cpp 2012-01-02 22:08:47.000000000 -0200
@@ -79,7 +79,7 @@
s->Bounds(u1,u2,v1,v2);
if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "|dddd", &u1,&u2,&v1,&v2))
return 0;
- BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace mkBuilder(s, u1, u2, v1, v2);
+ BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace mkBuilder(s, u1, u2, v1, v2, Precision::Confusion());
TopoDS_Shape sh = mkBuilder.Shape();
return new TopoShapeFacePy(new TopoShape(sh));
}
--- FreeCAD-0.12.5284/src/Mod/Part/App/Geometry.cpp 2012-01-02 16:32:09.000000000 -0200
+++ FreeCAD-0.12.5284_patched/src/Mod/Part/App/Geometry.cpp 2012-01-02 22:37:08.000000000 -0200
@@ -1252,7 +1252,7 @@
Handle_Geom_Surface s = Handle_Geom_Surface::DownCast(handle());
Standard_Real u1,u2,v1,v2;
s->Bounds(u1,u2,v1,v2);
- BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace mkBuilder(s, u1, u2, v1, v2);
+ BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace mkBuilder(s, u1, u2, v1, v2, Precision::Confusion());
return mkBuilder.Shape();
}
--- FreeCAD-0.12.5284/src/Mod/Part/App/PrimitiveFeature.cpp 2012-01-02 16:32:09.000000000 -0200
+++ FreeCAD-0.12.5284_patched/src/Mod/Part/App/PrimitiveFeature.cpp 2012-01-02 22:40:21.000000000 -0200
@@ -191,7 +191,7 @@
gp_Pnt pnt(0.0,0.0,0.0);
gp_Dir dir(0.0,0.0,1.0);
Handle_Geom_Plane aPlane = new Geom_Plane(pnt, dir);
- BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace mkFace(aPlane, 0.0, L, 0.0, W);
+ BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace mkFace(aPlane, 0.0, L, 0.0, W, Precision::Confusion());
const char *error=0;
switch (mkFace.Error())
--- FreeCAD-0.12.5284/src/Mod/Part/App/TopoShape.cpp 2012-01-02 16:32:09.000000000 -0200
+++ FreeCAD-0.12.5284_patched/src/Mod/Part/App/TopoShape.cpp 2012-01-03 00:19:12.000000000 -0200
@@ -1338,7 +1338,7 @@
double u1,u2,v1,v2;
surf->Bounds(u1,u2,v1,v2);
- BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace mkBuilder(surf, umin, umax, v1, v2);
+ BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace mkBuilder(surf, umin, umax, v1, v2, Precision::Confusion());
return mkBuilder.Face();
}
@@ -1391,7 +1391,7 @@
Standard_Real u1,u2,v1,v2;
mySurface->Bounds(u1,u2,v1,v2);
- BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace mkBuilder(mySurface, u1, u2, v1, v2);
+ BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace mkBuilder(mySurface, u1, u2, v1, v2, Precision::Confusion());
return mkBuilder.Shape();
}
@@ -1443,7 +1443,7 @@
mkSweep.Perform(tol, Standard_False, GeomAbs_C1, BSplCLib::MaxDegree(), 1000);
const Handle_Geom_Surface& surf = mkSweep.Surface();
- BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace mkBuilder(surf, umin, umax, vmin, vmax);
+ BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace mkBuilder(surf, umin, umax, vmin, vmax, Precision::Confusion());
return mkBuilder.Face();
}
--- FreeCAD-0.12.5284/src/Mod/Part/App/TopoShapeFacePyImp.cpp 2012-01-02 16:32:09.000000000 -0200
+++ FreeCAD-0.12.5284_patched/src/Mod/Part/App/TopoShapeFacePyImp.cpp 2012-01-03 00:24:40.000000000 -0200
@@ -135,7 +135,7 @@
return -1;
}
- BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace mkFace(S);
+ BRepBuilderAPI_MakeFace mkFace(S, Precision::Confusion());
if (bound) {
Py::List list(bound);
for (Py::List::iterator it = list.begin(); it != list.end(); ++it) {
With this patch I was able to build FreeCAD successfully on Slackware and now I’m happy playing around with it, discovering the new features
Where to get it
I submitted the new scripts to SlackBuilds.org, where they are waiting in the pending queue to be approved.
In the mean time, pre-built packages for Slackware (both 32- and 64-bits) can be downloaded from my site.
Dependencies
FreeCAD is based on OpenCASCADE, which has been updated a few times since the last time I built a package for it. FreeCAD also depends on a few other libraries: Pivy, SoQt, Coin and xerxes-c. Of these, Pivy also needed an update, so I started with this one.
Updating Pivy
This update was simple. I just got the latest “tag” from the Mercurial repository (there are no tarballs for Pivy) and cleaned up the SlackBuild a bit. Pivy needs Coin and SoQt to build. It takes some time to build, but all went fine.
The updated script was submitted and the new packages were uploaded. I also put a tarball with the snapshot from the Mercurial repository on my site, to make it easier to build and to guarantee that the correct version is used.
OpenCASCADE
OpenCASCADE has never been a simple package to compile. It is huge (sources are > 200MB) and takes some time to build (two hours on my desktop). And worst: it never builds the first time without errors
First it gave some of those dreaded “not declared in this scope” errors.
These errors are caused by stricter checking in the newer gcc versions (actually since 4.3, and Slackware 13.37 is already on 4.5). As usual, they were easily fixed with a small patch putting an extra “include” in the source code.
This is the patch:
--- OpenCASCADE-6.5.1/ros/src/OSD/OSD_MAllocHook.cxx 2011-05-19 08:24:52.000000000 -0300 +++ OpenCASCADE-6.5.1_patched/ros/src/OSD/OSD_MAllocHook.cxx 2011-08-10 12:39:39.000000000 -0300 @@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ #define __STDC_LIMIT_MACROS #endif #include <stdint.h> +#include <stdlib.h> #endif #include <set>
But that was not all. I soon discovered (after compilation complaining that FTFont.h was missing) that OpenCASCADE now depends on ftgl. Well, that should have been simple to resolve, as there is a ftgl SlackBuild on SlackBuilds.org.
OK, not that simple – it did not work.
Researching a bit on the internet, I found that they used an older version of ftgl, but the guys from OpenSUSE had already written a patch to solve this and can be found here.
After this, I was able to successfully build OpenCASCADE 6.5.1
I just added one thing to the SlackBuild – an option to include all the documentation. Most of it is available online and only interesting if your writing your own programs based on OpenCASCADE, not for users of FreeCAD for example. And we’re talking about 600MB of documentation…
So, the new script was also submitted and the pre-built packages uploaded.
Finally, FreeCAD
OK, so now I could start building FreeCAD, having all the dependencies ready on my machine!
The old problem with the boost libraries continued in the 0.11.3729 sources, to my surprise, but I substituted the original patch with a sed command, to make it easier to maintain:
sed -i "/-lboost/s/-mt\"/\"/g" configure
And two new problems appeared: the name of a function in OpenCASCADE had changed in 6.5.0 and a code for an error condition (according to OpenCASCADE never used) was removed.
I managed to write a small patch to get FreeCAD to compile with OpenCASCADE 6.5.0:
--- FreeCAD-0.11.3729/src/3rdParty/salomesmesh/src/SMESH/SMESH_MeshEditor.cpp 2010-10-17 05:59:46.000000000 -0200
+++ FreeCAD-0.11.3729_patched/src/3rdParty/salomesmesh/src/SMESH/SMESH_MeshEditor.cpp 2011-08-10 20:04:59.000000000 -0300
@@ -2205,8 +2205,8 @@
if ( projector.IsDone() ) {
double u, v, minVal = DBL_MAX;
for ( int i = projector.NbExt(); i > 0; i-- )
- if ( projector.Value( i ) < minVal ) {
- minVal = projector.Value( i );
+ if ( projector.SquareDistance( i ) < minVal ) {
+ minVal = projector.SquareDistance( i );
projector.Point( i ).Parameter( u, v );
}
result.SetCoord( u, v );
--- FreeCAD-0.11.3729/src/3rdParty/salomesmesh/src/SMESH/SMESH_Pattern.cpp 2010-10-17 05:59:46.000000000 -0200
+++ FreeCAD-0.11.3729_patched/src/3rdParty/salomesmesh/src/SMESH/SMESH_Pattern.cpp 2011-08-10 20:06:21.000000000 -0300
@@ -436,8 +436,8 @@
}
double u, v, minVal = DBL_MAX;
for ( int i = theProjectorPS.NbExt(); i > 0; i-- )
- if ( theProjectorPS.Value( i ) < minVal ) {
- minVal = theProjectorPS.Value( i );
+ if ( theProjectorPS.SquareDistance( i ) < minVal ) {
+ minVal = theProjectorPS.SquareDistance( i );
theProjectorPS.Point( i ).Parameter( u, v );
}
return gp_XY( u, v );
--- FreeCAD-0.11.3729/src/Mod/Part/App/PrimitiveFeature.cpp 2010-08-27 11:22:14.000000000 -0300
+++ FreeCAD-0.11.3729_patched/src/Mod/Part/App/PrimitiveFeature.cpp 2011-08-10 20:41:35.000000000 -0300
@@ -141,9 +141,6 @@
case BRepBuilderAPI_ParametersOutOfRange:
error = "parameters out of range";
break;
- case BRepBuilderAPI_SurfaceNotC2:
- error = "surface not C2";
- break;
default:
error = "unknown error";
break;
--- FreeCAD-0.11.3729/src/Mod/Part/App/TopoShape.cpp 2010-11-14 06:53:08.000000000 -0200
+++ FreeCAD-0.11.3729_patched/src/Mod/Part/App/TopoShape.cpp 2011-08-10 20:43:03.000000000 -0300
@@ -139,8 +139,6 @@
return "Curve projection failed";
case BRepBuilderAPI_ParametersOutOfRange:
return "Parameters out of range";
- case BRepBuilderAPI_SurfaceNotC2:
- return "Surface not C2-continous";
default:
return "Unknown creation error";
}
With this, I successfully build FreeCAD 0.11.3729 on Slackware!
Extra package
OpenCASCADE now has an optional dependency called gl2ps so I built a package for this as well.
Doing so, I needed to write a small patch to put the libraries in the correct /usr/lib64 directory on Slackware64:
--- gl2ps-1.3.5-source/CMakeLists.txt 2009-10-16 16:14:07.000000000 -0300
+++ gl2ps-1.3.5-source_patched/CMakeLists.txt 2011-08-10 17:24:43.000000000 -0300
@@ -113,7 +113,7 @@
set_target_properties(shared PROPERTIES COMPILE_FLAGS "-DGL2PSDLL -DGL2PSDLL_EXPORTS")
endif(MSVC)
- install(TARGETS lib shared DESTINATION lib)
+ install(TARGETS lib shared DESTINATION lib${LIB_SUFFIX})
endif(OPENGL_FOUND)
if(WIN32)
Where to get it
All scripts have been submitted to SlackBuilds.org.
If you don’t feel like spending about three hours building packages, you can get them ready-to-install from my site.