11 - Building and Compiling Brokers

Table of Contents

• 11.1 VR-Exchange Libraries
• 11.2 Third Party Libraries
• 11.3 Building Brokers
  • 11.3.1 Building Brokers for Linux
  • 11.3.2 Building Brokers for Windows
• 11.4 Rebuilding the HLA Broker
• 11.5 Rebuilding the DIS Broker
• 11.6 Rebuilding the DDS Broker
• 11.7 LROM Mapper Library Dependencies
• 11.8 Rebuilding the TENA Broker

VR-Exchange includes solution and project files in the example directories of the Windows version and makefiles in the example directories for the Linux version.

Please examine these files for a full picture of the build process.

11.1 VR-Exchange Libraries

VR-Exchange has the following libraries:

• libPortal - contains all classes and functions used to manage VR-Exchange, as well as the protocol-independent data messages that are exchanged between brokers. Brokers and pseudo-brokers, such as vrxMessageDump and the Portal require this library.
• libBroker contains classes that make development of brokers easier.
• libHla13Broker, libHla1516Broker, and libHla1516eBroker are the HLA broker implementations. These libraries contain code to translate the VR-Exchange protocol-independent messages to the HLA classes.
• libDisBroker is the DIS broker implementation.
• libDdsBroker is the DDS broker implementation.
• libTenaBroker is the TENA broker implementation.
• libPortalApp is the base library for the Portal application.

11.2 Third Party Libraries

VR-Exchange brokers require third party libraries.

VR-Link - The non-HLA components use vl, vlutil, xml, and matrix. The libHlaBroker library uses vlHLA13 or vlHLA1516. The libDisBroker library uses vlDIS.

Note

Use of VR-Link is not covered by the VR-Exchange license; you must purchase a separate license to use it. Please see your MAK sales representative for details.

Boost. Boost header files are included with VR-Exchange. They are in include/boost.

If you want to rebuild GUI components of the Portal or the brokers supplied with VR-Exchange, you need Qt. Qt is available as a free download under the LGPL version 2.1 license at www.qtsoftware.com. This version should be satisfactory for most VR-Exchange customers. If you need a Qt commercial license, you must purchase the license from Qt Software.

You do not need Qt to build new brokers or build the Portal without its GUI. You can purchase a Qt license from Trolltech: www.qtsoftware.com. Please see VR-Exchange Release Notes for the required version of Qt.

TENA users must install TENA middleware and any libraries required by their LROM. HLA users must install an RTI. DDS users must install OpenSplice.

11.3 Building Brokers

There are no special pre-processor flags required to build a broker. VR-Exchange includes release and debug versions of Windows libraries. Debug versions use the naming convention library_named.lib. The table lists the libraries required to build brokers for Windows and Linux.

Libraries Required to Build Brokers
Windows Libraries	Linux Libraries
vl{protocol}.lib	libvl{protocol}
vl.lib	libvl
vlutil.lib	libvlutil
matrix.lib	libmatrix
mtl.lib	libmtl
lib{protocol}Broker.lib	lib{protocol}Broker
libBroker.lib	libBroker
libPortal.lib	libPortal
libwidgets.lib	libwidgets
QtCore4.lib	libQtCore
QtGui4.lib	libQtGui
libxml2.lib	libxml2
libboost_date_time_{compiler}.lib	libboost_date_time_{compiler}

On Windows, the simpleBroker example requires the library vl5.

11.3.1 Building Brokers for Linux

To build a broker on Linux, be sure that your VR-Exchange installation path does not contain spaces.

1. Set environment variables, as follows:
   • Set MAK_VRLDIR to the location of your VR-Link installation.
   • Set QTDIR to the location of your Qt installation. (You must do this even if you are not building the GUI.)
   • If you are building the HLA Broker, set MAK_RTIDIR environment variable to your RTI install directory.
   • If you are building the DDS Broker, set OSPL_HOME to your OpenSplice install directory.
   • If you are building the TENA Broker, set MAK_TENADIR to your TENA install directory.
2. cd to the directory of the broker you want to build, for example brokers/disBroker.
3. Run make. For 64-bit Linux builds, run "make all64".

11.3.2 Building Brokers for Windows

1. Set environment variables, as follows:
   • Set MAK_VRLDIR to the location of your VR-Link installation.
   • Set QTDIR to the location of your Qt installation. (You must do this even if you are not building the GUI.)
   • If you are building the HLA Broker, set MAK_RTIDIR environment variable to your RTI install directory.
   • If you are building the DDS Broker, set OSPL_HOME to your OpenSplice install directory.
   • If you are building the TENA Broker, set MAK_TENADIR to your TENA install directory.
2. Open the solution file for the broker you want to build.
3. Build the solution.

11.4 Rebuilding the HLA Broker

The table lists the libraries you need to rebuild the HLA broker.

Libraries Required to Build the HLA Broker
Windows Libraries	Linux Libraries
vlHLA13.lib, vlHLA1516.lib, or vlHLA1516e.lib	libvlHLA13, libvlHLA1516, or libvlHLA1516e
vl.lib	libvl
vlutil.lib	libvlutil
matrix.lib	libmatrix
mtl.lib	libmtl
libRprHla13Broker.lib, libRprHla1516Broker.lib, or libRprHla1516eBroker.lib	libRprHla13Broker, libRprHla1516Broker, or libRprHla1516eBroker
libBroker.lib	libBroker
libPortal.lib	libPortal
libwidgets.lib	libwidgets
QtCore4.lib	libQtCore
QtGui4.lib	libQtGui
libxml2.lib	libxml2
libboost_date_time_{compiler}.lib	libboost_date_time_{compiler}

To rebuild the HLA broker on Windows, you must have the following RTI libraries (included with your RTI):

• librti1516.lib (for HLA 1516), librti1516e.lib (for HLA Evolved), or libRTI-NG.lib (for HLA 1.3)
• libfedtime1516.lib (for HLA 1516), libfedtime1516e.lib (for HLA Evolved), or libFedTime.lib (for HLA 1.3)

For the HLA broker several VR-Link compiler flags are required. Please consult the VR-Link documentation for instructions about how to build a VR-Link HLA federate.

11.5 Rebuilding the DIS Broker

To build the DIS broker, you must specify several VR-Link compiler flags. Please consult the VR-Link documentation for instructions about how to build a VR-Link application for DIS.

Libraries Required to Build the DIS Broker
Windows Libraries	Linux Libraries
vlDIS.lib	libvlDIS
vl.lib	libvl
vlutil.lib	libvlutil
matrix.lib	libmatrix
mtl.lib	libmtl
libDisBroker.lib	libDisBroker
libBroker.lib	libBroker
libPortal.lib	libPortal
libwidgets.lib	libwidgets
QtCore4.lib	libQtCore
QtGui4.lib	libQtGui
libxml2.lib	libxml2
libboost_date_time_{compiler}.lib	libboost_date_time_{compiler}

11.6 Rebuilding the DDS Broker

The DDS broker needs to link against the VR-Link vlDIS library in order to use the DIS state repository to store entity and interaction attributes. No additional compiler flags are necessary for this, as the source automatically defines the necessary flags.

Note

The source for the vlOpenSplice library is part of the DDS broker, and this library is included in the DDS broker's solution. The vlOpenSplice library automatically builds and links into the DDS Broker when building. However, for Windows, you must make the following changes to include/include/os_stdlib.h in the OpenSplice install.

Comment out the following lines:

OS_API extern char *optarg;
OS_API extern int optind, opterr;

OS_API int getopt( int argc, char **argv, const char* options );

The commented lines should look like this:

// MAK FIX: getopt is declared in vlMachineTypes, this declaration interferes.
// OS_API extern char *optarg;
// OS_API extern int optind, opterr;
// OS_API int getopt( int argc, char **argv, const char* options );

Libraries Required to Build the DDS Broker
Windows Libraries	Linux Libraries
libvlOpenSplice.lib	libvlOpenSplice
vlDIS.lib	libvlDIS
vl.lib	libvl
vlutil.lib	libvlutil
matrix.lib	libmatrix
mtl.lib	libmtl
libDdsBroker.lib	libDdsBroker
libBroker.lib	libBroker
libPortal.lib	libPortal
libwidgets.lib	libwidgets
QtCore4.lib	libQtCore
QtGui4.lib	libQtGui
libxml2.lib	libxml2
libboost_date_time_{compiler}.lib	libboost_date_time_{compiler}

11.7 LROM Mapper Library Dependencies

VR-Exchange includes release and debug versions of the following LROM Mappers: coLromMapper and makLromMapper. You can use VR-Link to build custom LROM Mappers.

The LROM mapper files have several dynamic library dependencies that are not supplied with either VR-Link or VR-Exchange. You can get these libraries the following ways from the TENA SDA web site:

• Download the TENA Middleware
• Download the appropriate Object Model.

11.8 Rebuilding the TENA Broker

If you build a TENA broker, you must set the VR-Link compiler flag DtTENA. This library has the dynamic library dependencies listed in this section. The libraries are available from the indicated sources.

The TENA broker also needs to link against the VR-Link vlDIS library in order to use the DIS state repository to store entity and interaction attributes. Please consult the VR-Link documentation for instructions about how to build a VR-Link application for DIS for these flags.

Libraries required for each platform are essentially the same. The libraries supplied with TENA Middleware and the MAK Object Model use the following naming convention:

Library_name-os-[d-]version.extension

where:

• Library_name is the platform-independent portion of the name
• os is the operating system: xp-vc71 for Windows VC++ 7.1; xp-vc80 for Windows VC++ 8.0; rhelws4-gcc34 for Red Hat Linux Enterprise Workstation 4 using gcc 3.4
• d specifies a debug version
• version is the version of the library
• extension is dll for Windows, or so for Linux.

The following libraries are supplied with the TENA Middleware:

• ACE-os-1.5.1d.ext
• libDCT_DIME-os-v5.2.2.ext
• libDCT_Utils-os-v5.2.2.ext
• TAO_PortableServer-os-1.5.1d.ext
• TAO-os-1.5.1d.ext
• libTENA_Middleware-os-v5.2.2.ext.

The following libraries are supplied with the MAK Object Model:

• libTENA-PlatformType-v1-os-v5.2.2_0.ext
• libTENA-PlatformType-v1-csvReader-v2-os-v5.2.2_0.ext
• libTENA-Time-v1.1-os-v5.2.2_0.ext
• libTENA-Time-v1.1-fullConversion-v2-os-v5.2.2_0.ext
• libTENA-UniqueID-v2-os-v5.2.2_0.ext
• libTENA-UniqueID-v2-userDefined-v1-os-v5.2.2_0.ext.

The following MAK libraries are provided with VR-Exchange. On Windows, debug libraries have a "d" before the extension, for example, vlTenad.lib.

Note

The source for the vlTena library is part of the TENA broker, and this library is included in the TENA broker's solution. The vlTena library automatically builds and links into the TENA Broker when building.

Libraries Required to Build the TENA Broker
Windows Libraries	Linux Libraries
libvlTena.lib	libvlTena
vlDIS.lib	libvlDIS
vl.lib	libvl
vlutil.lib	libvlutil
matrix.lib	libmatrix
mtl.lib	libmtl
libTenaBroker.lib	libTenaBroker
libBroker.lib	libBroker
libPortal.lib	libPortal
libwidgets.lib	libwidgets
QtCore4.lib	libQtCore
QtGui4.lib	libQtGui
libxml2.lib	libxml2
libboost_date_time_{compiler}.lib	libboost_date_time_{compiler}

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