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Rhys Mainwaring edited this page Feb 6, 2022 · 8 revisions

This page contains notes specific to building and running Ignition on macOS using the Metal render system.

Install Ignition from source

In this step we build a version of Ignition that uses the Metal graphics API rather than OpenGL.

Patch the osrf/homebrew-simulation/ogre2.2.rb brew formula

For the Qt application in ignition-gui to render a 3D scene using Metal, the MinimalScene plugin must have direct access to the rendered GPU texture. This requires a change to the Ogre::MetalTextureGPU class in Ogre2 which has been merged into the main branch of ogre-next, but has not yet been back-ported to ogre2.2. This patch makes the changes available in the osrf/homebrew-simulation tap which is easier to use than manually building ogre-next from the github repo.

The patch is on this branch: https://github.com/srmainwaring/homebrew-simulation/tree/feature/ogre2.2-metal-texture-gpu and is applied using the following commands:

$ cd /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/osrf/homebrew-simulation
$ git remote add fork https://github.com/srmainwaring/homebrew-simulation
$ git fetch
$ git checkout fork/feature/ogre2.2-metal-texture-gpu
$ brew reinstall --build-from-source ogre2.2

Get the Ignition source code

  1. Follow the Ignition Fortress instructions for a source installation on macOS up to the point just before Building the Ignition Libraries.

  2. Get the Metal development branches

In the following we suppose that you have your Ignition source code in the folder ~/workspace/src.

You need patches from the following branches:

These are applied as follows:

# Apply a fix to the Remotery profiling tool when using Metal 
cd ~/workspace/src/ign-common
git add remote fork https://github.com/srmainwaring/ign-common
git checkout feature/ign-common4-metal
# Enable Ignition to use the Ogre2 Metal render system and add Metal shaders and examples
cd ~/workspace/src/ign-rendering
git checkout main
# Enable Ignition GUI (Qt applications) to use the Qt MetalRhi backend and the Ogre2 Metal render system
cd ~/workspace/src/ign-gui
git add remote fork https://github.com/srmainwaring/ign-gui
git checkout feature/ign-gui6-metal
# Enable Ignition Gazebo to use the Metal render system (GPU sensors will use Metal to render) 
cd ~/workspace/src/ign-gazebo
git add remote fork https://github.com/srmainwaring/ign-gazebo
git checkout feature/ign-gazebo7-metal
  1. Confirm the source branches

Use colcon graph to provide an overview of the library versions and dependencies:

% colcon graph                  
ignition-cmake2       + ***************
ignition-tools         +    *  *. ...**
ignition-math6          + *****.*******
ignition-utils1          +* *..**.*..**
ignition-common4          +  ** *******
ignition-msgs8             + * *  .****
sdformat12                  +   *   ** 
ignition-fuel_tools7         +       * 
ignition-plugin1              + ****.**
ignition-transport11           +  *****
ignition-physics5               +    * 
ignition-rendering7              + ***.
ignition-tutorials                +    
ignition-gui6                      + **
ignition-sensors6                   +* 
ignition-gazebo7                     + 
ignition-launch5                      +

It's a good idea to check the branches being used for each Ignition library. These instructions use the following:

ign-cmake           ign-cmake2
ign-common          feature/ign-common4-metal
ign-fuel-tools      ign-fuel-tools7
ign-gazebo          feature/ign-gazebo7-metal
ign-gui             feature/ign-gui6-metal
ign-launch          ign-launch5
ign-math            ign-math6
ign-msgs            ign-msgs8
ign-physics         ign-physics5
ign-plugin          ign-plugin1
ign-rendering       main
ign-sensors         ign-sensors6
ign-tools           ign-tools1
ign-transport       ign-transport11
ign-utils           ign-utils1
sdformat            sdf12

which can be checked using

$ cd ~/workspace/src/ign-cmake
$ git branch -a

etc.

Build the Ignition source code

The standard method to build the libraries is to use the colcon build tool in the workspace:

colcon build --cmake-args -DBUILD_TESTING=OFF --merge-install --continue-on-error

Test Ignition Gazebo

Edit the XML for the MinimalScene plugin in ~/.ignition/gazebo/7/gui.config to use the Metal render system by adding the <render_system>metal</render_system> element:

<plugin filename="MinimalScene" name="3D View">
    <ignition-gui>
        <title>3D View</title>
        ...
    </ignition-gui>
    <engine>ogre2</engine>
    <scene>scene</scene>
    <ambient_light>0.4 0.4 0.4</ambient_light>
    <background_color>0.8 0.8 0.8</background_color>
    <camera_pose>-6 0 6 0 0.5 0</camera_pose>
    <graphics_api>metal</graphics_api>
</plugin>

On macOS the method used to start the Gazebo server and gui by forking the process in ruby will not work. Instead you must start the processes in separate terminals.

Start the server:

source ./install/setup.zsh
export PATH=/usr/local/opt/ruby/bin:$PATH
ign gazebo -v4 -s shapes.sdf

Start the client:

source ./install/setup.zsh
export PATH=/usr/local/opt/ruby/bin:$PATH
ign gazebo -v4 -g

You should see the window:

ign-gazebo-metal-shapes

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