Infrastructure for solid modeling.
(formerly known as mkeeter/ao)
(Tested on Mac OS X with dependencies installed via Homebrew.)
Check add-web-assembly-support branch for my latest changes.
- Project homepage (with demo videos!)
- API Examples
- Downloads
=======
Infrastructure for solid modeling.
Homepage | API Examples | Downloads
libfive
is a framework for solid modeling using
functional representations.
It includes several layers, ranging from infrastructure to GUI:
- The
libfive
shared library contains functions to build, manipulate, and render f-reps. A great deal of work has gone into the meshing algorithm, which produces watertight, manifold, hierarchical, feature-preserving triangle meshes. The library is written in C++ and exposes a C API inlibfive.h
. - The
libfive
standard library is a library of common shapes, transforms, and CSG operations. It is implemented in C++ and exposes a C API inlibfive/stdlib/stdlib.h
- The standard library is parsed and used to generate bindings for both Guile Scheme and Python, for use in the REPL or as part of larger applications.
- Studio is a GUI application in the style of OpenSCAD. It uses the Python and Guile bindings and allows for live-coding of solid models. The interface also includes direct modeling, where the user can push and pull on the model's surface to change variables in the script.
- Tovero: A 3D modeling system for Common Lisp
libfivepy
: A Python CAD library (work in progress)- Bindings for Unity
- High level Rust bindings
- Unpublished Stanza bindings (email for details)
- Inspekt3D: Lightweight pure-Guile viewer
- PyFive3D: Lightweight pure-Python viewer (work in progress)
- C5H12 (Pentane): Lightweight C viewer
- Massively Parallel Rendering of Complex Closed-Form Implicit Surfaces:
a technical paper extending
libfive
to render on the GPU (reference implementation)
For libfive
-specific discussions, consider opening a topic in the
Github Discussions tab.
There's also a libfive
subforum in the SDF User Group Discourse,
which is a good place for general discussion of modeling with signed distance
fields.
(c) 2015-2021 Matthew Keeter
Different layers of this project are released under different licenses:
- The
libfive
library,libfive-stdlib
library, and Python bindings are released under the Mozilla Public License, version 2. libfive-guile
andStudio
are released under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later.
Contact the author to discuss custom development, integration, or commercial support.
libfive
and Studio are compatible with macOS, Linux, and Windows.
When cmake
is first run,
it will check for all dependencies and print details of what
will be build, e.g.
Checking dependencies:
libfive: ✓
Guile bindings: ✓
Python bindings: ✓
Studio: ✓ (Python + Guile)
With homebrew
installed, run
brew install cmake pkg-config eigen libpng boost guile python3 qt
Omit guile
, python3
, or qt
to avoid building bindings and/or the UI.
Then, from the libfive
folder, run something like:
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/usr/local/Cellar/qt5/5.12.0 ..
make
(adjust based on your Qt installation,
and consider using ninja
for faster builds.
libfive
should build out of the box on the latest Ubuntu LTS
(currently 20.04). If you find that's not the case, please open an issue!
Start by installing dependencies through the package manager:
sudo apt-get install cmake pkg-config libeigen3-dev libpng-dev libboost-all-dev guile-3.0-dev qtbase5-dev python3
Omit guile-3.0-dev
and/or qtbase5-dev
if you do not want Guile bindings and/or Studio to be built too.
Building is similar as on Mac: clone the repository, then run something like
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make -j4
Once building is complete, run Studio with ./studio/Studio
.
Running sudo make install
will install components to system-wide destinations,
e.g. /usr/local/bin/Studio
for the main executable.
This will let you invoke Studio
from anywhere in the system,
rather than just the build
directory.
If you are using this workflow,
sudo make install
must be run after changes to the repository
to update the system-wide installation of the executable and libraries.
Studio.desktop
may be used to put a shortcut on your desktop.
If you don't want the Python bindings installed under /usr/lib
, you
can specify the install directory using the cmake
variable
PYTHON_SITE_PACKAGES_DIR
, e.g.
cmake -DPYTHON_SITE_PACKAGES_DIR=/usr/local/lib/python3.9/dist-packages .
Ubuntu releases before 20.04 are not officially supported; if you insist, there are hints here and a discussion of Python linking issues here.
Install Git, choosing settings so that it can be invoked from a Windows Command Prompt (the defaults should be fine).
Install VS2019 (Community Edition), configured for "Desktop development with C++". You only need MSVC, Windows 10 SDK, and C++ CMake tools for Windows, so feel free to uncheck other optional packages in the right sidebar, then run the installation!
Next, install dependencies using vcpkg
.
(This step touches many files, so you may want to disable the Antimalware Service Executable, which will otherwise scan every single file and slow things down dramatically: in "Windows Security → Virus & threat protection settings", uncheck "Real-time protection".)
In a Windows Command Prompt:
git.exe clone https://github.com/libfive/libfive
cd libfive
git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
.\vcpkg\bootstrap-vcpkg.bat
.\vcpkg\vcpkg.exe install --triplet x64-windows eigen3 boost-container boost-bimap boost-interval boost-lockfree boost-functional boost-algorithm boost-math libpng qt5-base python3
Go get some coffee or something - this will take a while.
Once this is done installing,
you're ready to actually build libfive
and Studio!
mkdir build
cd build
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake\CMake\bin\cmake.exe" -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE="..\vcpkg\scripts\buildsystems\vcpkg.cmake" -DVCPKG_TARGET_TRIPLET="x64-windows" -G"Visual Studio 16 2019" ..
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake\CMake\bin\cmake.exe" --build . --config Release --target Studio -- -v:n -m:8
.\studio\Release\Studio.exe
At this point, you can also double-click on Studio.exe
to launch it,
and create a shortcut to put it on your desktop.
(don't move it out of the build
directory,
or the precarious house of cards that finds Python will come tumbling down)
When changes are made, you should only need to re-run the build step, i.e.
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake\CMake\bin\cmake.exe" --build . --config Release --target Studio -- -v:n -m:8