How to specify libhdf5 location while building Paraview5.8.1 (DeskTop) in Ubuntu 18.04?

ParaView Support
1

Dear All,

Greetings… This is my first post seeking help in creating Plugin .so object. My issue is as follows:

  1. I am in Ubuntu 18.04 and have built the HDF5 library (in particular libhdf5.so) in ~/hdf5_build/CMake- hdf5-1.10.1/HDF_Group/HDF5/1.10.1/lib/
  2. I have exported this path in the terminal before building the paraview from source (5.8.1)
  3. My cmake options (in command line at the appropriate directory) are
cmake -GNinja -DPARAVIEW_USE_PYTHON=ON -DPARAVIEW_USE_MPI=ON -DVTK_SMP_IMPLEMENTATION_TYPE=TBB -CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
ninja
  1. The Reader Plugin is pasted in Plugin directory of the cloned folder before building paraview.
  2. However, after repeated trials, I could not generate the PlugIn.so object to be load by using Manage Plug-in Menu.
  3. I suspect it is a hdf5 issue. But trials with options such as
-DVTK_MODULE_USE_EXTERNAL_VTK_hdf5:BOOL=ON -D-DHDF5_DIR:PATH=~/hdf5_build/CMake-hdf5-1.10.1/HDF_Group/HDF5/1.10.1/lib/

did not succeed.

I request your advice on the matter. Please note that I am new to cmake and ninja tools.

Thanks in advance.

With Best regards

Sukumar

2

Are you building ParaView or a Plugin ? What is not working ?

3

Thanks a lot for your reply.

I am building both Paraview and Plugin. The Paraview binary is created and appears to be working fine. However, I am unable to create the .so file for the Plugin.
Any advice will be highly appreciated. Kindly let me know If more details are necessary.

Best regards.

Sukumar

4

Can you try building any plugin within Examples/Plugin directory ?

5

I never tried. But the plugins which are already part of Paraview such as “PanaromicProjectionView” etc were built and there exists the corresponding .so file.

6

It may be very naive to ask, but being totally new to Paraview building process, I thought that Plugins will be built automatically while Paraview is being built !

Please advise me how to build the Plugin separately, after/during compiling/building Paraview.

Best regards.
Sukumar

7

Plugins are, Examples Plugins aren’t.

What are you trying to achieve here ?

8

Dear Mathieu,
Thanks for your support.

In fact I am trying to create the .so file for a Plugin supplied with a free Finite Element Software.

A.) The content of the Plugin folder (named as PluginRoot here for explanation) are as follows:

  1. pluginRoot/CMakeLists.txt; pluginRoot/Tools (folder); PluginRoot/Plugin(folder)
  2. pluginRoot/Plugin/CMakeLists.txt; pluginRoot/Plugin/paraview.plugin; pluginRoot/Plugin/Reader/CMakeLists.txt; pluginRoot/Plugin/Reader/readerName.xml; pluginRoot/Plugin/Reader/vtkreaderName.cxx; pluginRoot/Plugin/Reader/vtkreaderName.h; pluginRoot/Plugin/Reader/vtk.module
  3. pluginRoot/Tools/

B) The PluginRoot folder was copied into paraviewSource/Plugin/ folder before compiling paraview.
C) It was supposed to generate the .so file in ~/paraview/paraview_build//lib/paraview-5.8/plugins/pluginName/pluginName.so;
D) However, the pluginName folder nor the .so file is generated.
E) Please advise if any additional build step is needed .

Best regards
Sukumar

9

Do not do that, build your plugin independently.

10

Would you kindly tell me how to do that! I am inexperienced totally.
Regards.

11 
cd pluginRoot
mkdir build
cd build
ccmake ../
*configure ParaView_DIR to point to your build directory of ParaView*
make
12

Thank you very much. Would you also please guide me how to configure PARAVIEW_DIR to point to paraview_build ? Sorry to bother you so much.

Regards.

13

just use cmake, ccmake or cmake-gui to set the paraview dir to the repository of your build.

Search for “set cmake variable”.

14

Thank you very much…
I will try these steps and let you know the outcome.

With Best regards

Sukumar

15

Dear @mwestphal Mathieu,

Let me express my sincere gratitude for guiding me to build the Plugin library.
Of course I had to adopt an overkill, i.e. changing my distribution to Ubuntu 20.04. This is due to my problem of installing libhdf5-dev from Ubuntu repository in Ubuntu 18.04LTS.

Now in Ubuntu20.04LTS, I first built paraview binary and then built the PlugIn after installing cmake and ccmake. Here I am writing my steps which may help some one trying to install some custom plugin.
Note that I am describing the folder I cloned paraview in as “paraview_clone” r and my paraview buid directory is “paraview_clone//paraview_build”. The custom plugin was a copied to “paraview_clone/Plugins/PluginName” folder.
My steps are:

  • Build paraview in “paraview_clone/paraview_build” as usual
cd ../paraview_build
cmake -GNinja -DPARAVIEW_USE_PYTHON=ON -DPARAVIEW_USE_MPI=ON -DVTK_SMP_IMPLEMENTATION_TYPE=TBB -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
ninja
  • This creates paraview binary at …/paraview_build/bin folder.
  • Next step is
cd '../PluginName'
mkdir build
cd build
ccmake -DParaView_DIR=/home/sukumar/paraview/paraview_build ../
make
  • The ' ccmake...' above This will invoke cmake-gui where configure options are shown. Edit the BUILD_TYPE as Release and press g to generate the configure file, and exit the cmake-gui
  • This will create the PluginName.so file at ../PluginName/build/lib/PluginName/

Hope this would help some-one new to cmake/ccmake tools like me.

Warm Regards and thanks @mwestphal once again for supporting a beginner like me with compassion.

Sukumar

16

Dear all,

  1. In my last post, the following was used to configure the plugin library.
ccmake -DParaView_DIR=/home/sukumar/paraview/paraview_build ../

2.Instead of ccmake in the above command to generate make file, simple command line procedure to generate ninja build file is

cmake -GNinja -DParaView_DIR=/home/sukumar/paraview/paraview_build ../
ninja

Hope this helps some one.

Best regards.
Sukumar

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