Prerequisites

Introduction

This page provides a detailed list of prerequisites and installation guidelines for users who wish to use HydroChrono. It covers the necessary software, libraries, and additional tools.

Section 1: Chrono and Dependencies

Before building HydroChrono, developers must first build Project Chrono from source.

For detailed instructions on how to install and build Chrono, please refer to the Chrono Install/Build Guide. For visualization, ensure this build includes the Irrlicht module.

Below are the necessary dependencies and the recommended versions:

• C++ Compiler (Visual Studio 2019 recommended)
• Eigen3 (3.4.0 recommended)
• Irrlicht Engine (1.8.4)
• CMake (3.18.2 or newer recommended)
• Git client

Section 2: H5Cpp from HDF5Group

HydroChrono developers will need to install the H5Cpp header file from HDF5Group. We recommend using version 1.10.8 as other versions may not be fully compatible.

Note:

This is why Visual Studio 2019 is recommended. Building HDF5 with newer versions of Visual Studio may not be straightforward. Further instructions for building with VS2022 will be provided in the future.

To facilitate the installation of H5Cpp, here’s a brief summary:

1. Download the 1.10.8 release .zip from HDF5Group.
2. Extract the .zip file to a preferred location.
3. Navigate to <path>\\libraries\\CMake-hdf5-1.10.8\\CMake-hdf5-1.10.8 and open a command line or powershell window.
4. Run the respective batch file or shell script for your platform, for example: ctest -S HDF5config.cmake,BUILD_GENERATOR=VS201964 -C RelWithDebInfo -V -O hdf5.log.
   • The RelWithDebInfo option is optional. However, it’s important to maintain consistency with the configuration option used to build Chrono and the one you plan to use for HydroChrono.
5. Follow through with the configuration process.
6. Once completed, locate the compressed binary named HDF5-N-<platform>.<zip or tar.gz> within the build folder and extract it.
7. Check the presence of hdf5-config.cmake files in the directory: <path>\\libraries\\CMake-hdf5-1.10.8\\CMake-hdf5-1.10.8\\build\\HDF5-1.10.8-win64\\HDF5-1.10.8-win64\\share\\cmake.
8. Set the HDF5_DIR environment variable to the installed location of the CMake configuration files for HDF5, for example, on Windows: HDF5_DIR=C:\\Users\\USER\\code\\libraries\\CMake-hdf5-1.10.8\\CMake-hdf5-1.10.8\\build\\HDF5-1.10.8-win64\\HDF5-1.10.8-win64\\share\\cmake.

Section 3: Optional Tools

• Gnuplot or any other plotting software of your choice. Learn more at Gnuplot Home.
• For users interested in Python integration, it is recommended to install and build PyChrono. Follow the instructions provided by Project Chrono. This guide also covers the installation of SWIG for generating python files from C++ code.