May 23, 20241 min read

Cogli2 Build Requirements

The Ubuntu and conda dependencies Cogli2 needs, and the CMake snippet for pointing it at a conda environment.

#linux#build#visualization

Cogli2 is an OpenGL tool for visualizing configurations of coarse-grained simulations — mainly the oxDNA/oxRNA DNA-nanotechnology systems — and making publication-ready figures. It comes from the oxDNA ecosystem, is maintained by Lorenzo Rovigatti and Flavio Romano, and is hosted on SourceForge under the project name cogli1.

Ubuntu libraries

libxrandr-dev
libxi-dev
libxxf86vm-dev
libxinerama-dev
libxcursor-dev

Conda packages

conda-forge::xorg-libxxf86vm

Pointing CMake at a conda environment

if(CONDA)
    include_directories("~/miniconda3/include")
    link_directories("~/miniconda3/lib")
endif(CONDA)

Adjust the path to match your actual conda installation.

Building from source

Build out-of-source; the executable lands in build/bin/:

cd cogli2
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j4

Useful CMake options:

-DDebug=ON
-DG=ON
-DLR_TETRA=ON — DNA colour scheme
-DNOPNG=ON — skip libpng; sometimes necessary on macOS

On macOS, -DNOPNG=ON may be needed, and the Xorg-ish development libraries listed under Ubuntu libraries above must be installed regardless.