Compile on MacOS

This page explains how to compile the latest FreeCAD source code on Mac OS X.

Prerequisites
First of all, you will need to install the following software.

Xcode Development Tools
Unless you want to use the Xcode IDE for FreeCAD development, you will only need to install the Command Line Tools. To do this on 10.9 and later, open Terminal, run the following command, and then click Install in the dialog that comes up. xcode-select --install

For other versions of OS X, you can get the package from the Apple developer downloads page (sign in with the same Apple ID you use for other Apple services). Specifically, you will need to download Development Tools 3.2 for OS X 10.6, and Command Line Tools 4.8 for OS X 10.8.

CMake
Install the latest version of CMake from http://www.cmake.org/download. Although Homebrew will also install CMake, it only installs the command line executable.

Homebrew
To install Homebrew, enter the following in Terminal: ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Getting the source
In this guide, the source and build folders are created in /Users/username/FreeCAD, but you can of course use whatever folder you want. mkdir ~/FreeCAD cd ~/FreeCAD

To get the FreeCAD source code, run: git clone git://git.code.sf.net/p/free-cad/code FreeCAD-git

Alternatively, you can use the github mirror: https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD_sf_master.git

Installing the Dependencies
All of the needed libraries can be installed using Homebrew. brew tap homebrew/science brew tap sanelson/freecad brew install boost eigen freetype oce python qt pyside pyside-tools xerces-c brew install --without-framework --without-soqt sanelson/freecad/coin brew install --HEAD pivy

Compiling FreeCAD
First, create a new folder for the build: mkdir ~/FreeCAD/build

Now you will need to run CMake to generate the build files. Open the CMake app, and fill in the source and build folder fields. In this case, it would be /Users/username/FreeCAD/FreeCAD-git for the source, and /Users/username/FreeCAD/build for the build folder.

Next, click the Configure button. This will display a dialog asking you to specify what generator to use. Leave it at the default Unix Makefiles. Configuring will fail the first time because there are some options that need to be changed. Note: You will need to check the Advanced checkbox to get all of the options.

Note: The above paths for OCE and Python are for versions 0.16.1 and 2.7.9, respectively -- change as needed.

Now click Configure again and then Generate.

Finally, run make to compile FreeCAD. cd ~/FreeCAD/build make –j3

The -j option specifies how many make processes to run at once. One plus the number of CPU cores is usually a good number to use. However, if compiling fails for some reason, it is useful to rerun make without the -j option, so that you can see exactly where the error occurred.

If make finishes without any errors, you can now launch FreeCAD, either from Terminal with ./bin/FreeCAD, or by double clicking the executable in Finder.

Creating an application bundle
TODO

Updating
FreeCAD development happens fast; everyday or so there are bug fixes or new features. To get these changes, run: cd ~/FreeCAD/FreeCAD-git git pull And then repeat the compile step above.

Troubleshooting
"No CMAKE_Fortran_COMPILER could be found." during configuraiton - Older versions of FreeCAD will need a fortran compiler installed. With homebrew, do "brew install gcc" and try configuring again.