libfive

Infrastructure for solid modeling.

(formerly known as mkeeter/ao)

About

• Project homepage (with demo videos!)
• 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 in libfive.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 in libfive/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.

Other projects using libfive

Language bindings

• Tovero: A 3D modeling system for Common Lisp
• libfivepy: A Python CAD library (work in progress)
• Bindings for Unity
• Unpublished Stanza bindings (email for details)

Viewers

• Inspekt3D: Lightweight pure-Guile viewer
• PyFive3D: Lightweight pure-Python viewer (work in progress)
• C5H12 (Pentane): Lightweight C viewer

Research

• Massively Parallel Rendering of Complex Closed-Form Implicit Surfaces: a technical paper extending libfive to render on the GPU (reference implementation)

License

(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 and Studio are released under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later.

Contact the author to discuss custom development, integration, or commercial support.

Compiling from source

The full system (libfive + libfive-guile + Studio) has been successfully compiled on Mac and Linux.

The libfive kernel builds on MSVC, and should also build with MinGW (though this is untested).

Dependencies

libfive

• cmake 1.65 or later
• pkg-config
• Eigen 3.3.x
• libpng
• Boost 1.65 or later

Guile bindings (optional)

• Guile 2.2.1 or later

If Guile isn't present, the Guile bindings won't be built.

Python bindings (optional)

• Python 3.7 or later

If Python isn't present, the Python bindings won't be built.

Studio (optional, requires Guile bindings)

• Qt 5.12 or later

If Qt and Guile aren't present, Studio will not be included in the build (and cmake will print a message to that effect).

Mac

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.

Ubuntu

As a rule of thumb, libfive targets packages available in the latest Ubuntu LTS, (currently 20.04 LTS). This is not automatically tested; if you find it's not the case, please open an issue.

20.04 or later

Ubuntu 20.04 or later should have all dependencies available through the package manager

sudo apt-get install cmake pkg-config libeigen3-dev libpng-dev libboost-all-dev guile-2.2-dev qtbase5-dev python3

Omit guile-2.2-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 -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<QT INSTALL PATH>/5.7/gcc_64 ..
make -j4

(adjusting the Qt path to your install location)

Running sudo make install will install libfive.so (the core shared library) and the libfive headers. If Guile bindings are enabled, they will be pre-compiled and installed to Guile's (%site-ccache-dir) directory. If Studio was also built, the Studio executable will installed as well. Studio.desktop may be used to put the program on your desktop (untested as of yet).

Before 20.04

On Ubuntu 18.04, you may need to update to a newer version of CMake, which is possible using the Snappy package manager:

sudo snap install cmake --classic

(untested)

CMake downloads are also available on their website

18.04 also does not have a new enough Qt in the package manager, so omit qtbase5-dev from the above package install command. To install Qt 5.12 or later, use the Qt Online Installer. The installer will prompt for the install path, which defaults to $HOME/Qt.

Before 18.04

Ubuntu releases before 18.04 do not provide guile-2.2-dev, so omit that from the above package install command. To build Guile 2.2.3 from source, run

sudo apt-get install libgmp-dev libltdl-dev libunistring-dev libgc-dev libffi-dev pkg-config
wget https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/guile/guile-2.2.3.tar.gz
tar -xf guile-2.2.3.tar.gz
cd guile-2.2.3
./configure
make -j4
sudo make install

Then, build as above.

Windows (VS2019)

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 & thread 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