SolveSpace

This repository contains the source code of SolveSpace, a parametric 2d/3d CAD tool.

Community

The official SolveSpace website has tutorials, reference manual and a forum; there is also an official IRC channel #solvespace at web.libera.chat.

Installation

Via Official Packages

Official release packages for macOS (>=10.6 64-bit) and Windows (>=Vista 32-bit) are available via GitHub releases. These packages are automatically built by the SolveSpace maintainers for each stable release.

Via Flathub

Official releases can be installed as a Flatpak from Flathub.

Get SolveSpace from Flathub

These should work on any Linux distribution that supports Flatpak.

Via Snap Store

Official releases can be installed from the stable channel.

Builds from master are automatically released to the edge channel in the Snap Store. Those packages contain the latest improvements, but receive less testing than release builds.

Or install from a terminal:

# for the latest stable release:
snap install solvespace

# for the bleeding edge builds from master:
snap install solvespace --edge

Via automated edge builds

⚠️ Edge builds might be unstable or contain severe bugs! They are intended for experienced users to test new features or verify bugfixes.

Cutting edge builds from the latest master commit are available as zip archives from the following links:

• macOS
• Windows with OpenMP enabled 32bit
• Windows 32bit
• Windows with OpenMP enabled 64bit
• Windows 64bit

Please note that the 64bit Windows versions do not support 6DOF (SpeceMouse, SpaceNavigator) controllers.

Extract the downloaded archive and install or execute the contained file as is appropriate for your platform.

Via source code

Irrespective of the OS used, before building, check out the project and the necessary submodules:

git clone https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace
cd solvespace
git submodule update --init

You will need git. See the platform specific instructions below to install it.

Building on Linux

Building for Linux

You will need the usual build tools, CMake, zlib, libpng, cairo, freetype. To build the GUI, you will need fontconfig, gtkmm 3.0 (version 3.16 or later) for GTK, or QT6 for the newer QT interface, pangomm 1.4, OpenGL and OpenGL GLU, and optionally, the Space Navigator client library.

On a Debian derivative (e.g. Ubuntu) these can be installed with:

sudo apt install git build-essential cmake zlib1g-dev libpng-dev \
            libcairo2-dev libfreetype6-dev libjson-c-dev \
            libfontconfig1-dev libpangomm-1.4-dev libgl-dev \
            libglu-dev libspnav-dev libgtkmm-3.0-dev qt6-base-dev

On a RedHat derivative (e.g. Fedora) the dependencies can be installed with:

sudo dnf install git gcc-c++ cmake zlib-devel libpng-devel \
            cairo-devel freetype-devel json-c-devel \
            fontconfig-devel pangomm-devel mesa-libGL-devel \
            mesa-libGLU-devel libspnav-devel gtkmm30-devel \
            qt6-qtbase-devel

gtkmm30-devel is required to build the GTK version and qt6-qtbase-devel is required to build the QT version. One or the other may be omitted if both versions are not needed. Likewise with libgtkmm-3.0-dev and qt6-base-dev for Debuntu respectively.

Before building, check out the project and the necessary submodules.

After that, build SolveSpace as following:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DENABLE_OPENMP=ON [-DENABLE_LTO=ON] [-DUSE_QT_GUI=ON] [-DENABLE_GUI=OFF]
make

# Optionally
sudo make install

Optional:

• -DENABLE_LTO=ON: Enable Link Time Optimization at the expense of longer build time.
• -DUSE_QT_GUI=ON: Build the newer QT GUI interface.
• -DENABLE_GUI=OFF: Build only the command-line interface

The GTK graphical interface is built as build/bin/solvespace, and the command-line interface is built as build/bin/solvespace-cli. The QT graphical interface is built as build/bin/solvespace-qt.

Building for Windows

Ubuntu will require 20.04 or above. Cross-compiling with WSL is also confirmed to work.

You will need the usual build tools, CMake, and a Windows cross-compiler. On a Debian derivative (e.g. Ubuntu) these can be installed with:

apt-get install git build-essential cmake mingw-w64

Before building, check out the project and the necessary submodules.

Build 64-bit SolveSpace with the following:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=../cmake/Toolchain-mingw64.cmake \
            -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make

The graphical interface is built as build/bin/solvespace.exe, and the command-line interface is built as build/bin/solvespace-cli.exe.

Space Navigator support will not be available.

Building for web (very experimental)

Please note that this port contains many critical bugs and unimplemented core functions.

You will need the usual build tools, cmake and Emscripten. On a Debian derivative (e.g. Ubuntu) dependencies other than Emscripten can be installed with:

apt-get install git build-essential cmake

First, install and prepare emsdk:

git clone https://github.com/emscripten-core/emsdk
cd emsdk
./emsdk install latest
./emsdk activate latest
source ./emsdk_env.sh
cd ..

Before building, check out the project and the necessary submodules.

After that, build SolveSpace as following:

mkdir build
cd build
emcmake cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DENABLE_LTO="ON" -DENABLE_TESTS="OFF" -DENABLE_CLI="OFF" -DENABLE_COVERAGE="OFF"
make

The graphical interface is built as multiple files in the build/bin directory with names starting with solvespace. It can be run locally with emrun build/bin/solvespace.html.

The command-line interface is not available.

Building on macOS

You will need git, XCode tools, CMake and libomp. Git, CMake and libomp can be installed via Homebrew:

brew install git cmake libomp

XCode has to be installed via AppStore or the Apple website; it requires a free Apple ID.

Before building, check out the project and the necessary submodules.

After that, build SolveSpace as following:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DENABLE_OPENMP=ON
make

Link Time Optimization is supported by adding -DENABLE_LTO=ON to cmake at the expense of longer build time.

Alternatively, generate an XCode project, open it, and build the "Release" scheme:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -G Xcode

The application is built in build/bin/SolveSpace.app, the graphical interface executable is build/bin/SolveSpace.app/Contents/MacOS/SolveSpace, and the command-line interface executable is build/bin/SolveSpace.app/Contents/MacOS/solvespace-cli.

Building on OpenBSD

You will need git, cmake, libexecinfo, libpng, gtk3mm and pangomm. These can be installed from the ports tree:

pkg_add -U git cmake libexecinfo png json-c gtk3mm pangomm

Before building, check out the project and the necessary submodules.

After that, build SolveSpace as following:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make
sudo make install

Unfortunately, on OpenBSD, the produced executables are not filesystem location independent and must be installed before use. By default, the graphical interface is installed to /usr/local/bin/solvespace, and the command-line interface is built as /usr/local/bin/solvespace-cli. It is possible to build only the command-line interface by passing the -DENABLE_GUI=OFF flag to the cmake invocation.

Building on Windows

You will need git, cmake and a C++ compiler (either Visual C++ or MinGW). If using Visual C++, Visual Studio 2015 or later is required. If gawk is in your path be sure it is a proper Windows port that can handle CL LF line endings. If not CMake may fail in libpng due to some awk scripts - issue #1228.

Before building, check out the project and the necessary submodules.

Building with Visual Studio IDE

Create a directory build in the source tree and point cmake-gui to the source tree and that directory. Press "Configure" and "Generate", then open build\solvespace.sln with Visual C++ and build it.

Building with Visual Studio in a command prompt

First, ensure that git and cl (the Visual C++ compiler driver) are in your %PATH%; the latter is usually done by invoking vcvarsall.bat from your Visual Studio install. Then, run the following in cmd or PowerShell:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -G "NMake Makefiles" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
nmake

Building with MinGW

It is also possible to build SolveSpace using MinGW, though Space Navigator support will be disabled.

The easiest way to build using MinGW is with MSYS2. If you're not using MSYS2, skip the installation instructions and ensure that git, cmake, ninja, and gcc are in your $PATH.

With MSYS2, you can build either a 32-bit binary or a 64-bit one, depending on the compiler used. The following instructions assume you're running the commands inside an MSYS2 MINGW64 terminal window and building a 64-bit version. If you want to build a 32-bit version, you'll need to run the commands in an MSYS2 MINGW32 terminal window and replace x86_64 with i686 in the installation commands.

First, install Git, GCC, CMake, and Ninja:

pacman -Sy mingw-w64-x86_64-git mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake mingw-w64-x86_64-ninja

Then, run the following in bash:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -GNinja
ninja

Contributing

See the guide for contributors for the best way to file issues, contribute code, and debug SolveSpace.

License

SolveSpace is distributed under the terms of the GPL v3 or later.