This topic describes how to install and configure the SKIRT code on Microsoft Windows using the Microsoft Visual Studio software development environment. Note that you will still need a command prompt window to actually run the SKIRT command line program.

This topic contains the following sections:

Install the build tools

The SKIRT code has been tested with Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 running on Windows 10. Earlier versions may not support all the required capabilities. In general, later versions should work fine.

Download the latest version of the freely available Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 Community edition from the Visual Studio download page and launch the installer.
On the installer's configuration page, select the "Desktop development with C++" option.
Select a custom install to include Visual C++ and the git and GitHub GUI clients and perform the installation.

Note: If you plan to use Qt Creator for building the SKIRT code (rather than Microsoft Visual Studio), then you also need to download the latest version of CMake for Windows from the CMake download page

Get the source code

In the Visual Studio welcome pane, or from the File menu, select "Clone or checkout a repository".
In the displayed dialog window, enter the URL for the GitHub repository, i.e. https://github.com/SKIRT/SKIRT9.git, and the directory path for the local clone, i.e. ~\SKIRT\git, where the tilde is replaced with the absolute path to some directory in your home folder.
Proceed to clone the repository.

Configure and build the code

Building for the first time

After cloning the repository, the default build type is Debug, which will result in slower execution. To configure a faster Release build, proceed as follows:

With the SKIRT project open in Visual Studio, click the popup button displaying "x64-Debug" in the toolbar at the top, and select the "Manage Configurations..." menu item. An editor called "CMake Settings" appears.
In this editor, click the "+" button at the top of the column at the left. In the displayed dialog window, scroll down and select the "x64-Release" item. Press the "Select" button to close the dialog.
In the fields to the right:
- Change the "Configuration Name" to "MyRelease".
- Change the "Configuration Type" to "Release".
- Change the "Build Root" to ~\SKIRT\release, where the tilde is replaced with an absolute path so that the release directory is next to the git directory.
Save the configuration document by pressing the "Save" icon in the toolbar at the top.
Click the popup button in the toolbar at the top and select "MyRelease".
In the Visual Studio menu bar, select "Build->Build All" to build the SKIRT code.

Adjusting build options

To adjust build options (see Use the SKIRT build options (all platforms) for a list of options):

With the SKIRT project open in Visual Studio, click the popup button displaying "MyRelease" in the toolbar at the top, and select the "Manage Configurations..." menu item. The editor called "CMake Settings" reappears.
In the table under the header "CMake variables and cache", enable the check box(es) for the desired option(s).
Save the configuration document by pressing the "Save" icon in the toolbar at the top.
In the Visual Studio menu bar, select "Build->Build All" to rebuild the project.

Download the SKIRT resource files

Because of size limitations in GitHub repositories, the resource data files needed by the SKIRT code are hosted elsewhere (on the Ghent University science faculty data server) and must be downloaded separately. The resource files are organized in resource packs, i.e. ZIP archives containing related resource data. The "Core" resource pack is required for the basic operation of SKIRT; other resource packs are optional and must be installed only if the corresponding SKIRT functionality is actually being used. The SKIRT source code repository does contain a list of the names and version numbers of the resource packs that should (or could) be downloaded. To view this list, locate and open the file ~\SKIRT\git\SKIRT\resources\ExpectedResources.txt.

On Windows there is no automated resource download procedure. Instead, proceed as follows:

From the Download SKIRT resource packs (Windows) page, download the desired resource packs (at least the latest version of the Core resource pack) as ZIP archive(s).
Extract the complete contents of each ZIP archive into some subdirectory of ~\SKIRT\resources, again replacing the tilde with an absolute path so that the resources directory is next to the git directory.

The files extracted from the archive should now have been placed in a subdirectory of the resources directory. The file history.txt inside that subdirectory offers brief historical release notes for the corresponding resource pack.

Finalize the installation

To verify your installation of the SKIRT project:

In file explorer, create a working directory next to the git directory, e.g. ~\SKIRT\run, where the tilde is again replaced with an absolute path.
Launch a command prompt window and change the current directory (cd) to the working directory you just created.
Enter ..\release\SKIRT\main\skirt.exe without any command-line arguments. If the SKIRT project has been successfully installed, SKIRT should display its welcome message and ask for the name of the ski file to be created, without complaining about missing resources.