Installation

These instructions are for installing only Gazebo Rendering. If you're interested in using all the Gazebo libraries, check out this Gazebo installation.

We recommend following the Binary Install instructions to get up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible.

The Source Install instructions should be used if you need the very latest software improvements, you need to modify the code, or you plan to make a contribution.

Ubuntu

Binary Installation

Install dependencies:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install wget lsb-release gnupg

Setup your computer to accept software from packages.osrfoundation.org:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.osrfoundation.org/gazebo/ubuntu-stable `lsb_release -cs` main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gazebo-stable.list'

Setup keys:

wget http://packages.osrfoundation.org/gazebo.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -

Install:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libgz-rendering<#>-dev

Be sure to replace <#> with a number value, such as 7 or 8, depending on which version you need.

Source Installation

Prerequisites

Ubuntu Focal 20.04 or above:

Install dependencies:

sudo apt -y install wget lsb-release gnupg
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.osrfoundation.org/gazebo/ubuntu-stable `lsb_release -cs` main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gazebo-stable.list'
wget http://packages.osrfoundation.org/gazebo.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y \
    cmake \
    pkg-config \
    git \
    libglew-dev  \
    libfreeimage-dev \
    freeglut3-dev \
    libxmu-dev \
    libxi-dev \
    libgz-cmake4-dev \
    libgz-math8-dev \
    libgz-common6-dev \
    libgz-plugin3-dev

Supported Rendering Engines

Gazebo Rendering will look for rendering libraries installed in the system and build the relevant plugins if dependencies are found.

OGRE 1.x

# this installs ogre 1.9
sudo apt-get install libogre-1.9-dev

OGRE-Next 2.x

Add OSRF packages if you have not done so already:

sudo apt -y install wget lsb-release gnupg
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.osrfoundation.org/gazebo/ubuntu-stable `lsb_release -cs` main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gazebo-stable.list'
wget http://packages.osrfoundation.org/gazebo.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt update

Install OGRE-Next 2.3 debs

sudo apt install libogre-next-dev

OptiX (experimental)

Download and install by following instructions on NVIDIA website

CUDA: http://docs.nvidia.com/cuda

OptiX: https://developer.nvidia.com/optix

Update LD_LIBRARY_PATH and add an OPTIX_INSTALL_DIR environment variables so that gz-rendering can find Optix, e.g. if you installed version 4.0.2 in HOME/optix:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${HOME}/optix/NVIDIA-OptiX-SDK-4.0.2-linux64/lib64:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
export OPTIX_INSTALL_DIR=${HOME}/optix/NVIDIA-OptiX-SDK-4.0.2-linux64

Note: If you encounter errors about different exception specifiers in optix math when building Gazebo Rendering OptiX plugin, edit [optix_install_dir]/include/optixu/optixu_math_namespace.h and comment out the section that defines fminf, fmaxf, and copysignf (for optix sdk 4.0.2, comment out lines 167-206).

Build from Source

1. Clone the repository

   # Optionally, append `-b gz-rendering#` (replace # with a number) to check out a specific version
   git clone http://github.com/gazebosim/gz-rendering

2. Configure and build

   cd gz-rendering
   mkdir build
   cd build
   cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/install/dir
   make

   Replace /path/to/install/dir to whatever directory you want to install this package to
3. Optionally, install

   make install

Windows

Install Prerequisites

First, follow the source installation tutorial until step 5 included for installing Conda, Visual Studio, CMake, etc., prerequisites, and creating a Conda environment.

Navigate to condabin if necessary to use the conda command (i.e., if Conda is not in your PATH environment variable. You can find the location of condabin in Anaconda Prompt, where conda).

Create if necessary, and activate a Conda environment:

conda create -n gz-ws
conda activate gz-ws

Binary Installation

conda install libgz-rendering<#> --channel conda-forge

Be sure to replace <#> with a number value, such as 7 or 8, depending on which version you need.

Source Installation

This assumes you have created and activated a Conda environment while installing the Prerequisites.

1. Install Gazebo dependencies:

   You can view available versions and their dependencies:

   conda search libgz-rendering* --channel conda-forge --info

   Install dependencies, replacing <#> with the desired versions:

   conda install libgz-cmake<#> libgz-common<#> libgz-math<#> libgz-plugin<#> --channel conda-forge

2. Navigate to where you would like to build the library, and clone the repository.

   # Optionally, append `-b gz-rendering#` (replace # with a number) to check out a specific version
   git clone https://github.com/gazebosim/gz-rendering.git

3. Configure and build

   cd gz-rendering
   mkdir build
   cd build
   cmake .. -DBUILD_TESTING=OFF  # Optionally, -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=path\to\install
   cmake --build . --config Release

4. Optionally, install

   cmake --install . --config Release

macOS

Binary Installation

Install Homebrew.

Add OSRF packages:

brew tap osrf/simulation

Install Gazebo Rendering:

brew install gz-rendering<#>

Be sure to replace <#> with a number value, such as 8 or 9, depending on which version you need.

Source Installation

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/gazebosim/gz-rendering -b gz-rendering<#>

   Be sure to replace <#> with a number value, such as 7 or 8, depending on which version you need.
2. Install dependencies

   brew install --only-dependencies gz-rendering<#>

   Be sure to replace <#> with a number value, such as 7 or 8, depending on which version you need.
3. Configure and build

   cd gz-rendering
   mkdir build
   cd build
   cmake ..
   make

4. Optionally, install

   sudo make install

Documentation

API documentation can be generated using Doxygen

sudo apt install -y doxygen

Build documentation

cd build
make doc

View documentation

firefox doxygen/html/index.html

Testing

Tests can be run by building the test target:

cd build
make test

Most tests can be run against multiple render engine configurations (if available). To control the testing configuration, use the following environment variables:

# Specify the rendering engine to use (ogre, ogre2, optix)
GZ_ENGINE_TO_TEST=ogre2
 
# Specify the ogre2 backend to use (vulkan, gl3plus, metal (macOS))
GZ_ENGINE_BACKEND=vulkan
 
# Specify if using "headless mode" (EGL or vulkan NULL window)
GZ_ENGINE_HEADLESS=1

A full invocation of a test would be

GZ_ENGINE_TO_TEST=ogre2 GZ_ENGINE_BACKEND=gl3plus ./bin/UNIT_Camera_TEST

Additionally, each test is registered with ctest for each engine/backend configuration available at build time. These can then be filtered with the ctest command line.

# See a list of all available tests
ctest -N
 
# Run all ogre2 tests (verbose)
ctest -R ogre2 -V
 
# Run all ogre2/vulkan tests (verbose)
ctest -R ogre2_vulkan -V
 
# Run all OpenGL tests (verbose)
ctest -R gl3plus -V
 
# Run all INTEGRATION tests (verbose)
ctest -R INTEGRATION -V