# How to build paraview with openVR

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-paraview-with-openvr/5165
**Category:** VR/AR
**Created:** [August 23, 2020, 12:43pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-paraview-with-openvr/5165 "2020-08-23T12:43:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![sharon](https://discourse.paraview.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@sharon](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/sharon)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2020, 12:43pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-paraview-with-openvr/5165/1 "2020-08-23T12:43:51Z")

</div>

Dear PVer,  
Forgive my simple question, but i cannot find useful instructions to build plugin openVR…

in build command line, I set “-DPARAVIEW\_PLUGIN\_ENABLE\_OpenVR=ON” to enable openVR build, but it failed with error “missing: OpenVR\_LIBRARY OpenVR\_INCLUDE\_DIR”…

then i download openVR source code from:

> **[ValveSoftware/openvr](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr)**
>
> OpenVR SDK. Contribute to ValveSoftware/openvr development by creating an account on GitHub.

and add these two definition in build command line  
OpenVR\_LIBRARY=openvr\_api.lib  
OpenVR\_INCLUDE\_DIR=openVR\headers

the build is successful, but to run this run application will need openvr\_api.dll

my questions:

- Is this the right way to build paraview openVR?

- When search released paraview, there is no such lib openvr\_api.dll?

Could you please help me!

Sharon

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![martink](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/martink/32/2082_2.png) [@martink](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/martink)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2020, 3:31pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-paraview-with-openvr/5165/2 "2020-08-24T15:31:44Z")

</div>

That is correct, openvr\_api.dll comes with the OpenVR SDK you cloned. Just copy it into the directory where your paraview.exe file is and it should find it.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![sharon](https://discourse.paraview.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@sharon](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/sharon)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2020, 12:13am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-paraview-with-openvr/5165/3 "2020-08-25T00:13:34Z")

</div>

Thank you Ken for your kind reply!  
The confusion for me is: when i down load the latest paraview 5.8.1, why i cannot find such openvr\_api.dll, it is renamed or using static link? or something else?

Many thanks for your answers!  
Best Regards,  
Sharon
