README

Octomap - A probabilistic, flexible, and compact 3D mapping library for robotic systems

See the list of contributors for further authors.

REQUIREMENTS

For only the octomap library: cmake and a regular build environment (gcc)
For HTML documentation: doxygen (optional)
For the viewer octovis: Qt4, OpenGL, QGLViewer (optional)

Skip to WINDOWS for tips on compilation under Windows. You can install all dependencies on Ubuntu by running:

sudo apt-get install cmake doxygen libqt4-dev libqt4-opengl-dev libqglviewer-dev-qt4

(Note: for older releases of Ubuntu you need to exchange the last package name with libqglviewer-qt4-dev)

INSTALLATION

See http://www.ros.org/wiki/octomap if you want to use OctoMap in ROS! There are pre-compiled packages for octomap, octovis, and ROS integration available.

Build the complete project by changing into the “build” directory and running cmake:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..

Type make to compile afterwards. This will create all CMake files cleanly in the build folder (Out-of-source build). Executables will end up in bin, libraries in lib.

A debug configuration can be created by running:

cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..

in build or a different directory (e.g. build-debug).

You can install the library by running make install, though it is usually not necessary. Be sure to adjust CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX before.

The target make test executes the unit tests for the octomap library, if you are interested in verifying the functionality on your machine.

DOCUMENTATION

The documentation for the latest stable release is available online: https://octomap.github.io/octomap/doc/index.html

You can build the most current HTML-Documentation for your current source with Doxygen by running make docs in the build directory. The documentation will end up in doc/html/index.html in the main directory.

GETTING STARTED

Jump right in and have a look at the example src/octomap/simple_example.cpp

Or start the 3D viewer with bin/octovis

You will find an example scan and binary tree to load in the directory share. Further examples can be downloaded from the project website.

USE IN OTHER PROJECTS

A CMake-project config is generated for OctoMap which allows OctoMap to be used from other CMake-Projects easily.

Point CMake to your octomap installation so that it finds the file octomap/lib/cmake/octomap/octomap-config.cmake, e.g. by setting the environment variable octomap_DIRto the directory containing it.

Then add the following to your CMakeLists.txt:

find_package(octomap REQUIRED)
include_directories(${OCTOMAP_INCLUDE_DIRS})
link_libraries(${OCTOMAP_LIBRARIES})

In addition to this cmake-module we also provide a pkgconfig-file.

For convenience, there is a minimal example project included in the file share/example-project.tgz

ECLIPSE PROJECT FILES

Eclipse project files can be generated (with some limitations, see: https://gitlab.kitware.com/cmake/community/-/wikis/doc/editors/Eclipse-CDT4-Generator) by running:

cmake -G"Eclipse CDT4 - Unix Makefiles" ..

Import the project (existing project, root is the build folder, do not copy contents) into Eclipse afterwards. For full Eclipse compatibility, it might be necessary to build in the main source directory.

WINDOWS

The octomap library and tools can be compiled and used under Windows although this has not been tested in-depth. Feedback is welcome.

To compile the library you need cmake (https://www.cmake.org) and either MinGW or Visual Studio.

MinGW

Download the MinGW distribution (http://www.mingw.org)
Install C++ compiler and add MingGW/bin to your system PATH
Start the cmake-gui and set the code directory to the library root (e.g. /octomap)
Create and set the build directory to, e.g., /octomap/build.
Press “Configure” then “Generate”, select the appropriate generator, “MinGW Makefiles”.

Start a command shell and “make” the project:

 octomap> cd build
 octomap/build> mingw32-make.exe

As verification, you can run the unit tests using ctest on the command prompt:

octomap/build> ctest.exe

Microsoft Visual Studio (2013 or later recommended)

Last tested with MSVC 2013 and 2015 (Community Edition).

Start the cmake-gui and set the source code directory to the library root (e.g. \octomap)
Create a build directory and set it in CMake (“Where to build the binaries”), e.g. \octomap\build.
Press “Configure” then “Generate”, select the appropriate generator, e.g. “Visual Studio 2015”. This generates a solution file octomap.sln in the build directory.
Load this file and build the project ALL_BUILD in Visual Studio.

Instead of building the complete distribution (octomap, octovis, and dynamicEDT3D) you can only build octomap by proceeding as described above but in the octomap subdirectory. This can help you getting started when there are problems with octovis and Qt4.

As verification, you can run the unit tests in Visual Studio by building the RUN_TESTS project or by using ctest on the command prompt:

octomap/build> ctest.exe -C Release