Setup guide Windows

March 25, 2025 ยท View on GitHub

Table of contents

Prerequisites

For OpenGL ES, OpenCL, OpenCV, OpenVX and Vulkan support additional packages are required, see below.

It's also a good idea to read the introduction to the FslBuild toolchain

Simple setup

  1. Decide what API's you want to compile and run apps for, then install them using one of the guides below.

  2. Start a windows console (cmd.exe) in the DemoFramework folder

  3. Run the visual studio vcvarsall.bat x64 to prepare your command line compiler environment for x64 compilation.

    • For VS2022 its often located here: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat" x64

  4. Run the prepare.bat file located in the root of the framework folder to configure the necessary environment variables and paths. Please beware that the prepare.bat file requires the current working directory to be the root of your demo-framework folder to function (which is also the folder it resides in).

    prepare.bat

Add OpenGL ES support

  1. One of these (they are mutually exclusive):

    To get started its recommended to utilize the Arm Mali OpenGL ES 3.0.4 emulator (64 bit) which this guide will assume you are using.

  2. Configure the OpenGL ES emulator for arm

    ConfigureOpenGLESEmu.bat arm

  3. Continue the normal setup.

To utilize a different emulator the ConfigureOpenGLESEmu.bat file can be launched with the following arguments

argumentemulator
armthe arm mali emulator
powervrthe powervr emulator
qualcommthe qualcomm andreno adreno emulator (expects its installed in "c:\AdrenoSDK")
vivantethe vivante emulator

Add Vulkan support

Install the Vulkan SDK, See the official SDK guide

  1. Download the Vulkan sdk

  2. Follow the documentation

  3. Continue the normal setup.

Add OpenCL support

  1. Download and install a OpenCL implementation. Beware we depend on cmake's find_package support to locate the installed OpenCL implementation.
  2. Continue the normal setup.

Add OpenCV 4.10 support

  1. Install the 4.10.0 sdk files.

  2. Configure the environment variable OPENCV_DIR to point to the sdk location like this

    set OPENCV_DIR=c:\_sdk\opencv-4.10.0\build

  3. Continue the normal setup.

Add OpenVX support

  1. Follow the guide for setting up OpenCL and OpenCV support. (need OpenCV4)
  2. Continue the normal setup.

The build chain will download and compile a OpenVX implementation.

To Compile and run an existing sample application

The general approach will be:

  1. Make sure that you performed the simple setup, including the API's the sample need.

  2. Change directory to the sample directory:

    cd DemoApps\<MAIN-API-NAME>\<SAMPLE-NAME>

    Example MAIN-API-NAME's: GLES2, GLES3, OpenCL, Vulkan.

    Type dir to see the dir choice.

    Example SAMPLE-NAME's: Bloom, S06_Texturing.

    Type dir after entering a API folder to see the list of samples

  3. Launch the visual studio project

    FslBuild.py -c open

  4. Verify that the executable is set as the startup project in the solution explorer, if its not then right click the executable and select "Set as Startup Project". If this is not done you are likely to get a "access denied" error when you try to run the project as it might try to run the "ALL_BUILD" target instead.

  5. Compile and run the project (The default is to press F5)

The following commands are also pretty useful to know.

CommandDescription
FslBuild.pyTo build the example.
FslBuildRun.pyTo build and run the example.
FslBuild.py --ListVariantsList all the build variants that can be specified.
FslBuildInfo.py --ListRequirementsTo list the samples requirements.
FslBuild.py -c open2Experimental Open the project in Visual Studio Code

It is also recommended to check out the README.md and Example.jpg that is included with all samples.

Note:

If you add source files to a project or change the Fsl.gen file then run the FslBuildGen.py script in the project root folder to regenerate the various build files or just make sure you always use the FslBuild.py script as it automatically adds files and regenerate build files as needed.

To Compile and run an existing GLES2 sample application

In this example we will utilize the GLES2.S06_Texturing app.

  1. Make sure that you performed the simple setup, including installing and configuring a OpenGLES emulator.

  2. Change directory to the sample directory:

    cd DemoApps\GLES2\S06_Texturing

  3. Launch the visual studio project

    FslBuild.py -c open

  4. Compile and run the project (The default is to press F5)

To create a new demo project named 'CoolNewDemo'

  1. Make sure that you performed the simple setup including the additional OpenGL ES setup.

  2. Change directory to the appropriate sample directory:

    cd DemoApps\<MAIN-API-NAME>

    Example MAIN-API-NAME's: GLES2, GLES3, OpenCL, Vulkan.

    Type dir to see the dir choice.

  3. Create the project template using the FslBuildNew.py script

    FslBuildNew.py <TEMPLATE-NAME> CoolNewDemo

    Example TEMPLATE-NAME's: GLES2, GLES3, OpenCL1_2, OpenCV4, Vulkan.

    To get a full list run FslBuildNew.py . . --List

  4. Change directory to the newly created project folder 'CoolNewDemo'

    cd CoolNewDemo

  5. Launch the visual studio project

    FslBuild.py -c open

Note:

If you add source files to a project or change the Fsl.gen file then run the FslBuildGen.py script in the project root folder to regenerate the various build files or just make sure you always use the FslBuild.py script as it automatically adds files and regenerate build files as needed.

So to create a new GLES2 demo project named 'CoolNewDemo'

In this example we will create a GLES2 app called CoolNewDemo.

  1. Make sure that you performed the simple setup including the additional OpenGL ES setup.

  2. Change directory to the GLES2 sample directory:

    cd DemoApps/GLES2

  3. Create the project template using the FslBuildNew.py script

    FslBuildNew.py GLES2 CoolNewDemo

  4. Change directory to the newly created project folder 'CoolNewDemo'

    cd CoolNewDemo

  5. Launch the visual studio project

    FslBuild.py -c open

Visual Studio Code support

There is now experimental visual studio code support. To support visual studio code we generate/patch the configuration files stored under .vscode.

  • launch.json contains the configuration used to launch the executable if one exist
  • settings.json contains the cmake configuration required to build the project.

VS Code Prerequisites

To Compile and run an existing sample application using VSCode

In this example we will utilize the GLES2.S06_Texturing app.

  1. Make sure that you performed the simple setup.

  2. Change directory to the sample directory:

    cd DemoApps/GLES2/S06_Texturing

  3. Open the project in visual studio code

    FslBuild.py -c open2

    This should launch visual studio code configured for the app.

BEWARE: Visual Studio Code has its own setting for debug/release build which is configured in the bottom blue line. BEWARE: Make sure you use the correct launch script. "FslBuild-Windows" for windows and "FslBuild-Ubuntu" for ubuntu.

Appendix

Appendix: Windows configure OpenGLS emulation bat file changes

  • Introduced FSL_GLES_EMULATOR_PATH as the main path to the emulation installation
  • Renamed FSL_GLES_NAME to FSL_GLES_EMULATOR_NAME
  • Renamed FSL_GLES_LIB_PATH to FSL_GLES_EMULATOR_LIB_PATH
  • Removed FSL_GLES_INCLUDE_PATH
  • Removed FSL_GLES_LIB_EGL
  • Removed FSL_GLES_LIB_GLES

Appendix: Notes

Legacy Git note

When you add the generated build.sh to git on windows then please remember to set the executable bit using:

git update-index --chmod=+x build.sh

Building AMD OpenVX files yourself

WARNING: only do this if you have issues with the pre-compiled version we include