= Building CompuCell3D on Windows using Visual Studio 2008 =
Building CompuCell3D from source on Windows systems is fairly straightforward once all of it's dependencies have been satisfied. The following commands should build and install CC3D on most Windows systems.

= Prerequisites =
==== Hardware ====
CompuCell3D may build and run with less capable hardware, but has been tested with the following:

 * 512MB RAM
 * Hardware 3D Graphics Acceleration (most modern graphics cards)

==== Build Tools and Dependencies ====
In addition to Visual Studio 2008, building and running CompuCell3D requires:

 * SWIG (version 1.3 or higher recommended) - after installing SWIG add SWIG installation directory to search path
 * CMake (CMake-GUI is recommended)
 * Python (version 2.7)
 * A directory with precompiled dependencies - available as a SVN repository located at http://www.compucell3d.org/BinDoc/cc3d_binaries/dependencies/windows/VS2010/dependencies_qt_4.8.5_pyqt_4.10.3_vtk_5.10.1_python27
 * Alternatively you may get the dependencies as a zip file directly from sourceforge : http://sourceforge.net/projects/cc3d/files/compile_dependencies
To download it right-click on the directory into which you want to download it - in my case it is ''d:/dependencies'' -  and from the TortoiseSVN context menu choose Checkout...:

{{attachment:c00.jpg}}

In the popup dialog type http://www.compucell3d.org/BinDoc/cc3d_binaries/dependencies/windows/VS2008/dependencies_qt_4.7.4_pyqt_4.8.6_vtk_5.8.0_python27 as a URL of repository

and D:/dependencies as a checkout directory:

{{attachment:c00a.jpg}}

= Adding SWIG to search Path =
In my case swig was installed to ''C:/swig''. Then I go to open Control Panel » System » Advanced » Environment Variables. They are separated into user and machine specific values. You can view and edit their values there. Their current values upon launch are made available to all programs. I will add c:\swig to PATH variable (I am editing user environment variables, not the global ones) as shown below:

{{attachment:v00.jpg}}

= Adding VTK_DIR environment variable =
Because parts of CC3D code depend on VTK libraries we need to set up VTK_DIR environment variable and we set it to ''d:\dependencies\VTK-5.8.0-python27\lib\vtk-5.8'' as shown below:

{{attachment:v01.jpg}}

= Source Code =
Once the dependencies have been satisfied, obtain the source code from our SVN repository using the following command from git command-line tool:

{{{
git clone https://github.com/CompuCell3D/CompuCell3D.git d:\CODE_TGIT
}}}
This will create a directory d:\CODE_TGIT` and download the source code into it.

Alternativly you may use TortoiseGit gui as shown in pictures below

{{attachment:c01.jpg}}

PLEASE CHANGE THE NAME OF REPOSITORY IN THE SCREENSHOT BELOW TO:

{{{
https://github.com/CompuCell3D/CompuCell3D.git
}}}
{{attachment:c02.jpg}}

At this point we are ready to configure CC3D for building using VS 2008

= Generating VS 2008 project using CMake =
CompuCell3D is configured using the CMake build system. Double click CMake icon and set source and build directories to d:\CODE_TGIT\CompuCell3D and D:\CODE_TGIT_build\cc3d_build as show below:

{{attachment:c03.jpg}}

After clicking Configure you will get a pop up dialog where you should select Visual Stutio Project 2008 as a target project generator

{{attachment:c04.jpg}}

After configuration is doe you will get a screen that looks somewhat similar to the one below:

{{attachment:c05.jpg}}

You may check NO_OPEN_CL option if you do not have OPEN_CL toolkit installed

and for installation of CC3D to succeed you set WINDOWS_DEPENDENCIES to ''d:\dependencies''. Also change CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX to d:\CompuCell3D (or wherever you wish CC3D to be installed on your system):

{{attachment:c06.jpg}}

Click Configure , and Generate and then open up Visual Studio 2008.

= Compilation with Visual Studio =
1. Open up ALL_BUILD project in D:/CODE_TGIT_build/cc3d_build - go to File->Project/Solution... and navigate to D:/CODE_TGIT_build/cc3d_build and choose ALL_BUILD:

{{attachment:c07.jpg}}

2. Change build configuration to Release or RelWithDebInfo - go to Build->Configuration Manager... and pick RelWithDebInfo from pull-down menu:

{{attachment:c08.jpg}}

3. Right-click on the ALL_BUILD in solution explorer and choose build from the context menu to start compilation

{{attachment:c09.jpg}}

4.Right-click on the INSTALL in solution explorer and choose build from the context menu to install CompuCell3D into d:\CompuCell3D:

{{attachment:c10.jpg}}

Now you can go to the directory where you installed CC3D by typing at command-line prompt

{{{
D:
}}}
followed by

{{{
cd COMPUCELL3D
}}}
followed by CompuCell3d start-up script:

{{{
compucell3d.bat
}}}
{{attachment:c11.jpg}}

This completes manual build of CC3D on Windows using Visual Studio 2008.