Installation of development tools
0. Login with your username and password to http://www.simtk.org Instructions for building the OpenSim GUI are at http://wiki.simtk.org/opensim/BuildingGUI
1. Download NetBeans IDE with JDK Bundle, e.g., at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk-netbeans-jsp-142931.html
OpenSim is built on top of the Netbeans platform which is included with the NetBeans IDE. Ensure you install a distribution of NetBeans (version 5.5.1 or later) that is bundled with a compatible Java JDK (you do not have to separately install a possibly incompatible NetBeans and Java JDK). Ensure you download the 32-bit JDK version if you're using 32 bit libraries (the only option on Windows and Macintosh as of 9/2011).
2. If you anticipate that you may need to make changes to the OpenSim API, download and install SWIG (version 1.3.40 or later) from http://www.swig.org
How to Build the OpenSim GUI
The GUI is built on top of the C++ API, after wrapping it using SWIG. Unless you need to recreate the Java wrapping (e.g to change signature of methods or to expose new classes) there's no need to have swig installed. The output from SWIG (java classes in package org.opensim.modeling and the C++ files OpenSimJNI_wrap.cxx) is already checked into the OpenSim repository. If you plan to change the API then do the following:
* Check the box for BUILD_JAVA_WRAPPING in CMake while building OpenSim.
* Build the project javawrap (in VisualStudio)
* Build the library osimJavaJNI and install it.
Prerequisites
* An installed version of the OpenSim libraries: these are either built from source then installed or downloaded and included with some distribution of OpenSim (that is consistent with the source you're using)
* Visualization libraries: For now these are VTK libraries and they are included in the bin directory of OpenSim distributions and a Windows version is available in the OpenSim repository.
* OpenSim repository.
Building and running
* Start Netbeans, and the click on File->Open Project
* Browse (starting with the folder containing the OpenSim source code) to one of its OpenSim sub-folder's named OpenSim/Applications/Gui/ and then open the "project" opensim.
* Click on the green arrow button (run project button) to automatically compile all the source and launch the OpenSim GUI (which may look a bit different and contain extra menu items/windows depending on your version of !Netbeans -- but the functionality is there).
* If you have an OpenSim installation consistent with the GUI you built and the bin directory of this installation is on your library path (env. var PATH on windows, LD_LIBRARY_PATH on linux, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH on Mac) then the application will launch smoothly, if not you'll need to fix these environment variables and relaunch NetBeans.