Building RTKLIB code in Windows

For most users running RTKLIB in Windows there is probably no need to build their own executables, it’s simpler to just download the pre-built demo5 executables from here or the 2.4.3 executables from here.

However, there are a few reasons why you might choose to download the source code and build your own executables instead. First of all, the pre-built executables are built with a large number of options enabled, but not all options. This means they will work for most user configurations but there are some less common configurations they won’t be able to handle. In addition, because they have so many options enabled, they will run slower and use more memory than executables built with only the minimum required number of options enabled.

Also, the latest available executables will not include the most recent updates to the code, you will need to build your own version to get these. And of course, anyone who wants to make any changes to the code will have to build their own executables.

OK, so let’s say you’ve decided to build your own versions. How do you go about doing it? It’s not a complicated process, most reasonably computer-savvy users would be able to figure it out on their own, but I’ll try to provide a few tips below to make it a little quicker and less painful.

The first step is to download the source code from the Github repository. I will assume you are using the demo5 code which is available here, but the same process will work with the official 2.4.2 or 2.4.3 code as well. Click on the “Code” box on the Github repository page to download the code. If you are familiar with Github you may choose to clone the repository or open with Github desktop but for most users it is probably simplest to just choose the “Download ZIP” option and then unzip the code to your desired location on your local drive.

The next step is to choose your compiler. You can use either Microsoft Visual Studio or Embarcadero C++ Builder. Both have community editions which can be downloaded and used for free for non-commercial use. However, Visual Studio will only build the RTKLIB command line apps, not the GUIs, so unless you already have Visual Studio on your computer and only need the command line apps, I would suggest using the Embarcadero compiler.

Now go back to the RTKLIB code folder you just downloaded and unzipped. Most of the common source code is in the “/src” folder but each RTKLIB app has its own sub-folder inside the “/app” folder. Let’s use RNX2RTKP, the RTKLIB command line post-processing solution app, as an initial example. In the “/app/rnx2rtkp” folder you will see a number of different sub-folders for different build methods.

Build a single app with the Embarcadero C++ Builder

Let’s assume for now you are using the Embarcadero compiler and want to build the 64-bit version of the code. You will want to open the “/bcc_win64” folder and within that folder you will see an Embarcadero project file called “_rnx2rtkp_win64.cbproj”. Double-click on this file to open the 64-bit version of the project in the Embarcadero compiler. If your hardware only supports 32-bit executables, you can select the “/bcc/_rnx2rtkp.cbproj” project file instead. When the compiler opens, it should look something like this:

From the “Project” menu, click on “Make _rnx2rtkp_win64” to compile the code. When done, the result should look like the image below. Make sure it says “Linking: Done” and “Errors: 0”

And that’s it. The result, “_rnx2rtkp_win64.exe”, will be in the “\app\rnx2rtkp\bcc_win64\Release_Build” folder.

The only differences for the GUI apps are that the project files are directly in the app folders rather than in sub-folders and in some cases there are separate app folders for the 32 bit and 64 bit versions. For example, for RTKNAVI, you will find a “app/rtknavi/rtknavi.cbproj” project file and a “app/rtknavi_win64/rtknavi_win64.cbproj” project file.

Build a single command line app with Microsoft Visual Studio.

The instructions for Microsoft Visual Studio are very similar, however you will only be able to build the CONVBIN and RNX2RTKP apps since Visual Studio does not support the GUI apps.

After installing Visual Studio, click on the “msc.sln” project file in the “\app\rnx2rtkp” folder to open the project.

Choose “Build Solution” from the “Build” menu to compile the code. The resulting executable will be in the “app\rnx2rtkp\msc\Release” folder.

The project will default to a 32-bit version but you can add a 64-bit version using the Configuration Manager, just be sure to to check the Build box in the new configuration as shown below.

Building and installing the entire RTKLIB library with the Embarcadero C++ Builder

If you are using the Embarcadero compiler and would like to build all the RTKLIB apps at once instead of one at a time, you can use the “rtklib_consapp.groupproj” and “rtklib_winapp.groupproj” project files in the “/app” folder to build the console apps and GUI apps respectively. From the “Project” menu, select “Make All Projects” for each of these group projects. You will see errors when the GUI project attempts to build the RTKVIDEO and RTKVPLAYER apps but you can ignore these, assuming you don’t plan to use these apps.

After completing the builds, run the batch files “app/install_consapp.bat” and “app/install_winapp.bat” to copy all the executables from the “Release” folders to the single “../RTKLIB_bin/bin” folder. You will need to create the destination folder first to avoid errors when it copies the files.

Modifying the build options with the Embarcadero C++ builder

So far, I’ve assumed you want to build with the default build options but sometimes you will want to change these. I will describe the procedure for the Embarcadero compiler, but the procedure is very similar for Visual Studio.

Open the project in Embarcadero for an individual app and then select “Options” from the Project Menu. Select “C++ Compiler->Directories and Conditionals” from the choices in the left column and then set the “Target” box near the top center to “All configurations – All platforms” as shown in the image below. Click on the three dots at the end of the “Conditional defines” list to open up a list of the current defines.

You can now add or remove any of the “Conditional defines” from the list. The definitions of the default defines are as follows:

WIN32: Use the WIN API – use for 32 bit or 64 bit apps
ENAGLO: Enable GLONASS
ENAGAL: Enable Galileo
ENAQZS: Enable QZSS
ENACMP: Enable Beidou
ENAIRN: Enable IRNSS
NFREQ=3: Max # of frequencies, 3=L1+L2+L5, must be >=2 for u-blox
NEXOBS=3: # of extra observations, used to store multiple codes per freq

Other optional defines are:

ENALEO: Enable LEO
ENALEX: Enable QZSS LEX extension
WIN_DLL: Generate Library as Windows DLL

I have not tested any of these optional defines, so no guarantee if any of them work.

Well, I think that’s about it. I’ve probably forgotten something, but this should be enough to get you started.

In my next post, I will cover building the code in Linux.