In this tutorial you will learn how to install ViSP easily from source with Pixi on any supported platform.

Pixi is a cross-platform package management tool for developers that will install all required dependencies in .pixi directory. It's used by our CI agent so you have the guarantee to get the right dependencies.

All dependencies are pinned to a working version in the pixi.lock file, which is regulary updated.

Current supported platforms:

linux-64
osx-64
osx-arm64
win-64 (both MSVC and Clang-cl compilers)

1. Install Pixi

Install Pixi if you do not have it yet. You'll find instructions on this page.

2. Build & install ViSP using Pixi

Run the following command to install default ViSP configuration dependencies, configure, build and test the project:

$ pixi run test

Or, to install ViSP with all supported features (such as Python bindings):

$ pixi run -e all test

The project will be built in the build directory.

The Pixi environment option "-e all" tells to Pixi that it should use the "all" environment, defined in the pixi.toml Pixi manifest file, located in ViSP root source directory. This environment contains all optional features of ViSP.

Theses commands will run the Pixi task "test". In pixi.toml file, having a look at the [tasks] section, you can see the definitions of all Pixi tasks for ViSP. In this case, "test" task depends on other tasks. Here are the available Pixi tasks for the default environment:

"configure": Run the CMake configuration of the project in the build directory
"build": Build ViSP default configuration in the build directory. Will call the configure task automatically.
"install": Install ViSP in its Pixi default environment (directory .pixi/envs/default/). Will call the build task automatically.
"test": Run ViSP tests for its default environment. Will call the install task automatically.

Each Pixi environment inherits from these default tasks and can have additional tasks.

You can also run "pixi shell" and build the project with cmake and make / ninja manually. This will activate a Pixi environment (which is behind the scene a Conda environment) where all dependencies are installed and available. You can similarly specify the Pixi environment you want to enter, such as:

$ pixi shell -e all

3. Tips & tricks

3.1. Chosing between Clang-cl and MSVC compilers on Windows

On Windows, the default installed compiler with Pixi is MSVC vs2019. This corresponds to the current pinned default C++ compiler on Conda-Forge. If you want to use Clang-cl compiler instead, consider using the "all-clang-cl" environment for example (or create your own that uses the "clang-cl" Pixi feature defined in our pixi.toml file).