Installing software components

Before you install JRail you have to install some additional software components which most likely are not standard parts of your operating system. See below for instructions.

Installing Java

Downloading

In order to run JRail you need Java Virtual Machine version 5.0 (JDK1.5 also called J2SE 5.0) or higher. You can get Java directly from Sun's site.

If you just want to install binary version of JRail, JRE distribution is sufficient for you (it is significantly smaller). If you want to build JRail from sources, you need full JDK version.

Java is OS-independent so you can find version which is dedicated to your operating system. As I have tested JRail on Windows and Linux systems I cannot guarantee that JRail will run on other OS's (such like Mac). However, I do not put any OS-dependant code in JRail so at least my part of source should run everywhere.

Notes on Windows systems

For MS Windows Sun prepares easy to use installer for both JRE and JDK. You just need to run the installer and proceed installation wizzard. After installation your Java is ready to use.

Try to test it: open cmd window (Start>Run...> and type cmd). In command line enter the following:

java -version

The version displayed should be the same you have installed. If not, try to look for other JRE's installed in your system and uninstall the older one.

Installing Java3D

Java3D is OpenGL/DirectX interface for Java platform. Actually it gives much more than pure OpenGL API. This is quite big library which supports developer on many areas. It contains model loaders that's it, it supports many model formats such like 3ds.

Java3D is developed by Sun, but unfortunatelly it is not included in default JRE so you must download it separately.

Downloading

Java3D project can be downloaded using it's download page.

Please download latest stable version; it is 1.3.2 so far.

Notes for all systems

Distribution for all operating systems are zipped, you need to unzip it in your JRE directory (all files of Java3D will be moved to relevant locations and after that your Java3D is installed. You don't need to restart anything.

Installing ANT

(only for source distribution)

You need ANT utility if you want to build JRail from source distribution. Get ANT from APACHE site: http://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi. Please use ANT version 1.6 or newer.

Installing ANT

ANT is distributed as a ZIP archive. All you need to do is to unzip it into c:\Program Files or /usr/local location. Remember that ANT executables (usually stored in bin folder of ANT distribution) should be included in your PATH.

To test that your ANT is installed properly, open your command shell (or cmd in MS WINDOWS) and execute:

ant

You should see the following message:

Buildfile: build.xml does not exist!
Build failed

If you can't see this message, check if your PATH variable includes reference to your ANT executables folder.

Installing JRail binary distribution

To install JRail be sure that both Java and Java3D are properly installed. If you still haven't downloaded JRail binary distribution, do it now.

JRail binary distribution is an ordinary ZIP file which must be unzipped in location of your choice. If you do so, a new folder will appear in this location, for version 1.0 milestone build 1 it will be named like this:

jrail-1.0m01/

For further information about running, see usage page.

Building JRail from source distribution

To build JRail from sources, you need full JDK, Java3D and ANT. If you still haven't downloaded JRail source distribution, do it now.

JRail source distribution is an ordinary ZIP file which must be unzipped in location of your choice. After that a new folder will appear in this location.

Assuming that you have installed JDK and ANT properly, go to

jrail/ant

folder and, using command shell (or cmd tool in MS Windows) execute the following command:

ant distbin

After few seconds a binary distribution ZIP file is created in ant folder. Proceed with instructions of using binary distribution (here).