Assimp isn't found by CMake - c++

Question

Before saying anything: Yes, I googled and searched for a long time before asking this here so 99% the solution of other similar questions doesn't work for me.
I have an opengl application that uses the following libraries:
glfw
imgui
glad
stb
assimp
glm
filebrowser (an extension of imgui for dialog boxes)
all these libraries are in a folder called external each one in its dir.
Moreover, glfw, assimp, glm are git submodules of my repo so they're downloaded when i clone my repo with git clone --recursive mygitrepo.
You can have a better understanding of the structure of the project looking at my git repo.
My idea was to use the add_subdirectories to make them compile with their own CMakeLists and my main one looks like this:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.21.3)
project(Reskinner)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17)
set(CMAKE_VERBOSE_MAKEFILE ON)
add_executable(${PROJECT_NAME} Main.cpp)
add_subdirectory(external/glfw)
add_subdirectory(external/assimp)
add_subdirectory(external/glad)
add_subdirectory(external/imgui)
add_subdirectory(external/stb)
add_subdirectory(external/glm)
add_subdirectory(external/FileBrowser)
add_subdirectory(src)
find_package(OpenGL REQUIRED)
target_include_directories(${PROJECT_NAME}
PUBLIC external/glfw/include
PUBLIC external/assimp/include
PUBLIC external/glm
PUBLIC external
PUBLIC src
)
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} glfw glad imgui stb glm Engine assimp FileBrowser)
The project was developed with visual studio on windows and I want to compile it on linux without using visualstudio. The cmake doesn't give me any errors but when i run the make command it gives me this error:
#include <assimp/quaternion.h> there's no file or directory with this name.
like i didn't put the assimp include folder in the cmake (but i did).
Do you have any idea how to make it works? I want to make a bash script to install all the dependencies and tools needed like xorg-dev, build-essential, git, cmake, make etc. So if there's any simple fix using some bash commands it's ok for me.

Answer 1

I figured out how to fix it. I just installed conan and used it to download and find assimp. So I removed assimp, glm, glfw and glad from 'external' folder and just added a conanfile.txt.
Here the conanfile.txt:
[requires]
assimp/5.2.2
glfw/3.3.7
glm/0.9.9.8
glad/0.1.35
[generators]
cmake_find_package
cmake_paths
my main CMakeLists.txt now it's as following:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.21.3)
project(Reskinner)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17)
set(CMAKE_VERBOSE_MAKEFILE ON)
add_executable(${PROJECT_NAME} Main.cpp)
include(${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/conan_paths.cmake)
# Retrieve conan.cmake
if (NOT EXISTS "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/conan.cmake")
message(STATUS "Downloading conan.cmake from https://github.com/conan-io/cmake-conan")
file(DOWNLOAD "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/conan-io/cmake-conan/master/conan.cmake" "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/conan.cmake")
endif ()
include("${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/conan.cmake")
conan_cmake_run(CONANFILE "conanfile.txt" BASIC_SETUP UPDATE BUILD missing)
set(CMAKE_MODULE_PATH ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR})
find_package(OpenGL REQUIRED)
find_package(glad REQUIRED)
find_package(glfw3 REQUIRED)
find_package(glm REQUIRED)
find_package(assimp REQUIRED)
add_subdirectory(external/stb)
add_subdirectory(external/imgui)
add_subdirectory(external/FileBrowser)
add_subdirectory(src)
file(MAKE_DIRECTORY
"${CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY}/Shaders")
function(install_file_to_bin file_name)
file(INSTALL "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/Shaders/${file_name}" DESTINATION "${CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY}/Shaders")
endfunction()
install_file_to_bin(1.model_loading.fs)
install_file_to_bin(1.model_loading.vs)
install_file_to_bin(4.1.fshader.fs)
install_file_to_bin(4.1.vshader.vs)
install_file_to_bin(animated_model_loading.fs)
install_file_to_bin(animated_model_loading.gs)
install_file_to_bin(animated_model_loading.vs)
install_file_to_bin(bb.vs)
install_file_to_bin(bb.fs)
install_file_to_bin(default.frag)
install_file_to_bin(default.fs)
install_file_to_bin(default.geom)
install_file_to_bin(default.vert)
install_file_to_bin(default.vs)
install_file_to_bin(floor.fs)
install_file_to_bin(floor.vs)
install_file_to_bin(framebuffer.frag)
install_file_to_bin(framebuffer.vert)
install_file_to_bin(grey_model.fs)
install_file_to_bin(grey_model.vs)
install_file_to_bin(hover.fs)
install_file_to_bin(hover.vs)
install_file_to_bin(influence_of_single_bone.fs)
install_file_to_bin(influence_of_single_bone.vs)
install_file_to_bin(mouse_shader.fs)
install_file_to_bin(mouse_shader.vs)
install_file_to_bin(normal_visualizer.fs)
install_file_to_bin(normal_visualizer.gs)
install_file_to_bin(normal_visualizer.vs)
install_file_to_bin(no_lighting_shader.fs)
install_file_to_bin(no_lighting_shader.vs)
install_file_to_bin(num_bones_visualization.fs)
install_file_to_bin(num_bones_visualization.vs)
install_file_to_bin(screen_shader.fs)
install_file_to_bin(screen_shader.vs)
install_file_to_bin(selected.fs)
install_file_to_bin(selected.vs)
install_file_to_bin(smooth_lighting_shader.fs)
install_file_to_bin(smooth_lighting_shader.vs)
install_file_to_bin(wireframe.vs)
install_file_to_bin(wireframe.fs)
set(CMAKE_CXX_INCLUDE_WHAT_YOU_USE 1)
set(CMAKE_LINK_WHAT_YOU_USE 1)
set_property(TARGET ${PROJECT_NAME} PROPERTY INTERPROCEDURAL_OPTIMIZATION TRUE)
include_directories(
${OpenGL_INCLUDE_DIRS}
${glad_INCLUDE_DIRS}
${glfw3_INCLUDE_DIRS}
${glm_INCLUDE_DIRS}
${assimp_INCLUDE_DIRS}
external
src
)
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME}
${OpenGL_LIBRARIES}
${glad_LIBRARIES}
${glfw3_LIBRARIES}
${glm_LIBRARIES}
stb
${assimp_LIBRARIES}
imgui
FileBrowser
Engine
)
Some notes that can be usefull for other people having this troubles:
Assimp has some linking problem when used with conan because it seems that it doesn't download everything but just what you need so it works for the #include but it complains in the linking phase. Adding the following 3 rows fixed the problem:
set(CMAKE_CXX_INCLUDE_WHAT_YOU_USE 1)
set(CMAKE_LINK_WHAT_YOU_USE 1)
set_property(TARGET ${PROJECT_NAME} PROPERTY INTERPROCEDURAL_OPTIMIZATION TRUE)
I have a script to install everything you need on linux and install the stuff with conan, launch the cmake etc.. Even if I install the conan packages with the command conan install .. [...] I need the conan.cmake file so the lines at the beginning looking for the conan.cmake files fixed a lot of problems
The shell scripts is the following:
#!/bin/bash
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git
sudo apt-get install xorg-dev
sudo apt-get install make
sudo apt-get install cmake
sudo apt-get install build-essential
cd build
rm -rf *
conan install .. --settings os="Linux" --settings compiler="gcc" --settings compiler.version=11 --build missing
cmake -S .. -B . -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make
cd build
Hope this can help you