How to build Assimp, the Open Asset Import Library, on Mac OS X

Assimp is an open source C++ library to import and export several 3D formats. According to the features page Assimp can import Collada, Blender 3D, 3ds Max 3DS, 3ds Max ASE, Wavefront Object and many other formats.

I wanted to build it on my Mac, to use it in a project of mine and I discovered that it is very easy.

First of all, you have to download the source code from the download page. For production software they recommend (of course) to download the release version packaged in a ZIP archive (at the current state of Assimp, the release version is 3.1.1). But, if you want to work with the bleeding edge code you can clone the Git repository.

The build system used by Assimp is Cmake. Therefore, download Cmake for Mac OS X from this link: Mac OSX 64/32-bit Universal (for Intel, Snow Leopard/10.6 or later), and install it.

When done, extract the archive of Assimp in a folder of your choice (I suggest to create a subfolder named Assimp in your ~/Documents folder).

You'll get a folder named assimp-3.1.1 (the version number depends on the current release).

Then open Cmake and insert the source code folder and the build products destination folder.

Click the "Configure" button. And choose "Xcode", from the popup menu in the modal window that appears, and select "Use default native compilers".

Configuration process should start. The "Configure" button updates its label with "Stop" and the progress bar should run.

At the end of the process Cmake will produce an output like this.

Now, you have to click the "Generate" button to automatically create an Xcode project.

At the end of the process you will get a Xcode project in the build destination folder.

Open the Xcode project and build sources as usual.

Done.