Compiling Fl-Inventor on Windows

Another option for Open Inventor programming on Windows is the Fl-Inventor library. Here's how I got it to build:

Download the latest version of FLTK 1.1 from http://www.fltk.org/. At the time of this writing, the latest is fltk-1.1.7-source.zip
Unzip somewhere convenient, say C:\fltk-1.1.7
Open visualc\fltkdll.dsw with Visual Studio. (I'm using 6.0. If you're using a later version, your mileage may vary.)
Choose Build, Set Active Configuration... and choose fltkdll - Win32 Release
Choose Build, Build fltkdll.dll.
Download and install an older version of CMake from http://www.cmake.org/files/. (The latest version won't work without change, and the last thing I need to learn is a new build tool.) I used CMSetup14.exe.
Download fliv-1.0.1.tar.gz and oiv_linux_w32-4.tar.gz from http://fl-inventor.sourceforge.net/. Unzip them both into the same place.
Change to C:\fl-inventor and type "cmake ."
Back in Visual Studio, open FLINV_ALL.dsw
Set the Active Project Configuration to "ALL_BUILD - Win32 Release".
Choose Project, Settings.... Settings For: should be set to "Win32 Release", and all sub-projects should be selected.
Holding down the Ctrl key, de-select ALL_BUILD. Some more tabs should appear to the right. Select the C++ tab, and change Category: to "Preprocessor". Under Additional include directories:, add C:\fltk-1.1.7.
Holding down the Ctrl key again, de-select FL, FreeType2, and Jpeg. A Link tab should appear to the right. Select it and Change the Category: to "Input". Under Additional library path:, add C:\fltk-1.1.7\test. Click Ok
Choose Build, Build. The build will take several minutes.
Exit Visual Studio. You should be able to run the example programs from C:\fl-inventor\install\bin

Open Inventor on Windows

The Open Source version of SGI Open Inventor is Linux-specific, and while it probably ports easily enough to other UNIX platforms, it doesn't look like a very attractive option for Windows.

If you want to do Open Inventor programming on Windows, the options seem to be:

TGS Open Inventor, a commercial product
Coin3D, a GPL clone of Open Inventor
a Win32 port of the Open Source SGI Open Inventor that requires the SoQt library from Coin3D

Coin3D is probably the best choice, but it seems to include only the OI libraries, not the OI command-line tools like ivview and ivnorm.

Alternatively, the Win32 port of Open Inventor does incldue pre-compiled DLLs of Inventor, but not of the SoQt library or command-line tools.

I'm honestly not sure what the best solution is. I'll post some instructions when I come up with something.

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Compiling Fl-Inventor on Windows

Open Inventor on Windows