Compile Met.3D from source code: Windows

This page describes how to setup a development environment to compile Met.3D from its source code on Windows.

We are using vcpkg for package management. It will automatically build all third-party dependencies and save them in a dedicated folder.

Important

The installation procedure described here only works for Met.3D v2.0 and higher versions. Older versions are not natively supported on Windows.

Note

A source build of Met.3D takes roughly 33 GB of space for its dependencies and an additional 4GB of space for each of its build directories. This is necessary for vcpkg to store the build artefacts of all dependencies of Met.3D.

Prerequisites

The following tools are required to build Met.3D on Windows.

  1. Visual Studio 2026, which installs MSVC, CMake and Ninja

  2. A Fortran compiler such as the Intel oneAPI Fortran Compiler

  3. vcpkg

  4. git

1. Setup and install MSVC

Met.3D currently only supports compilation with MSVC on Windows. Download and install it and Visual Studio 2026. Select the Desktop C++ and optionally Cross-platform C++ support for cross-compiling. Deselect the vcpkg package manager under individual components. The bundled one behaves slightly differently than a bootstrapped vcpkg, and it might not compile Met.3D due to an issue with a dependency.

2. Setup and install a Fortran compiler

Met.3D requires a fortran compiler to be installed. We used the Intel oneAPI Fortran Compiler. Download the windows offline installer and install it. Choose the recommended installation and the Visual Studio integration. Once the installation is finished, a new start entry for the Intel oneAPI command prompt should appear.

3. Bootstrap vcpkg

You will also need a vcpkg installation. If you want another location you can bootstrap it as follows:

git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git
cd vcpkg; .\bootstrap-vcpkg.bat

Next you have to set the VCPKG_ROOT environment variable to your vcpkg installation. This is required, so that Met.3D can find the vcpkg installation.

4. Get the source code

Next you can clone the Met.3D repository to a location of your choosing:

git clone https://gitlab.com/wxmetvis/met.3d.git

5. Building Met.3D from source in the terminal

Finally, you can build Met.3D from source. Even though we recommend an IDE for development, this section will outline the steps necessary to build it from terminal.

Open the Intel oneAPI command prompt from the start menu. If you haven’t already, you can set VCPKG_ROOT for this terminal session via set VCPKG_ROOT=\Path\To\vcpkg. Then, navigate to the Met.3D repository and execute the following commands:

cmake --preset win-x64-debug
cmake --preset win-x64-release

These two commands, will create two build folders, one for a release build and one for a debug build.

Note

If your configuration step fails with an error, especially when the last build library in the output is qtdeclerative, please check your VCPKG_ROOT with set VCPKG_ROOT and the vcpkg executable via where vcpkg. The first should return your bootstrapped vcpkg, while the second command should return nothing. If you installed Visual Studio with the bundled vcpkg, remove it via the Visual Studio installer.

Next, you can build Met.3D by navigating into the build folder and running:

cmake --build .

6. Running Met.3D from terminal

You might notice, that Met.3D will not run directly from its build folder. This is because it searches for Qt plugins when starting, which it cannot find. To fix this, you need to set an environment variable for release builds:

set QT_PLUGIN_PATH=PATH_TO_YOUR_BUILD_FOLDER/vcpkg_installed/x64-windows/Qt6/plugins

For debug builds set it to the following:

set QT_PLUGIN_PATH=PATH_TO_YOUR_BUILD_FOLDER/vcpkg_installed/x64-windows/debug/Qt6/plugins

You can then start Met.3D from this terminal:

.\Met3D.exe

7. Setting up an IDE

Since building directly from command line is a bit cumbersome, we will describe how to setup an IDE for Met.3D on Windows.

Visual Studio

First, we will explain how to setup Visual Studio for Met.3D, since it was already installed when downloading the C++ compiler.

To start it, you will have to open the Intel oneAPI command prompt and type:

devenv

This will open the Visual Studio start window. There, click Open a folder and navigate to your Met.3D source directory. Visual Studio should now open with the Met.3D project active.

You can run, or re-run cmake from the Project menu at the top. By default, cmake will also auto-run once the configuration changes. This will be shown in the output window at the bottom.

You can select your build configuration at the top below the menu bar. To run it, select Met3D.exe as the startup item. You might need to build Met.3D at least once before though. To do that, go to the Build menu at the top and select Build all. The option is only available, if cmake configuration has finished.

CLion

To use CLion with Met.3D, simply open the Met.3D source folder as a project in CLion. If this is the first time you open it, you should be greeted with the Open Project Wizard.

On the toolchains page, remove the MinGW setup, as that is currently not supported. Instead, use the Visual Studio toolchain. You also need to add an environment file, to setup the Intel Fortran compiler. Click Add environment and select the setvars.bat file. It is usually located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\oneAPI.

On the next page you will configure the cmake configurations. There will be one default configuration, and two disabled configurations called win-x64-debug and win-x64-release. Remove the default configuration and enable the disabled configurations.

Closing the wizard will configure cmake.

Once that completes, you can select your build and run configuration in the menu bar.

Important

You will not be able to start Met.3D just yet with CLion, as it will not find the Qt plugins. For that edit your run configuration, and add a new environment variable, QT_PLUGIN_PATH. Set its value to PATH_TO_BUILD_DEBUG/vcpkg_installed/x64-windows/debugQt6/plugins;PATH_TO_BUILD_RELEASE/vcpkg_installed/x64-windows/Qt6/plugins

8. Packaging

If you want to package Met.3D into a redistributable package, navigate to your build folder and run the following command:

cpack -G 7Z .

which will package Met.3D into a portable 7Zip file.

Alternatively, you can package an installer using:

cpack -G NSIS .

The output package will be placed into the build folder you ran the command from. This requires NSIS to be installed on your system and added to your PATH.

Note

There are other generators available as well. Just run cpack -G to see a list of them.