Open RV is an image and sequence viewer for VFX and animation artists. Open RV is high-performant, hardware accelerated, and pipeline-friendly.

RV Documentation

OpenRV uses submodules to pull some dependencies. When cloning the repository, make sure to do it recursively by using the following command:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/OpenRV.git

If you cloned the repo without setting the --recursive flag, you can initialize the submodule in another step with the following command:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Open RV is currently supported on the following operating systems:

• Windows 10 and 11
• macOS Big Sur, Monterey and Ventura
• Linux Centos 7

Support for other operating systems is on a best effort basis.

You can use source rvmds.sh to add common build aliases into your shell. After the first download following the installation of the required dependencies, use rvbootstrap to set up, configure, and build Open RV with the default options.

After the setup, you can use rvmk (the common build alias) to configure and build Open RV. You can also use rvmkd to configure and build in Debug.

This repository uses a pre-commit to execute formatting before a commit. To install the pre-commit hooks:

pre-commit install

To clean your build directory and restart from a clean slate, use the rvclean common build alias, or delete the _build folder.

Before first your first Open RV build, you must install some python dependencies.

Use the rvsetup common build alias to run the bootstrap step.

python3 -m pip install --user --upgrade -r requirements.txt

The project uses CMake and requires a configure step before building. It is during the configure step that you provide your Qt package.

From the root of the repository, execute cmake and specify the path to an arbitrary build folder and the path to your QT5 package.

Use the rvcfg (the common build alias) to run the configuration step. You can also use rvcfgd to configure in Debug.

On Windows, you must specify the path to Strawberry perl for the OpenSSL build.

cmake -B _build -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A x64 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DRV_DEPS_WIN_PERL_ROOT=/c/Strawberry/perl/bin -DRV_DEPS_QT5_LOCATION=/c/path/to/your/Qt/Root

cmake -B _build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DRV_DEPS_QT5_LOCATION=/Path/To/Your/Qt5/Root

To keep your third-party builds between build cleanups, set -DRV_DEPS_BASE_DIR=/path/to/third/party.

Invoke the previously specified generator tool using cmake to run the build step (recommended).

Use the rvbuild (the common build alias) to run the build step. You can also use rvbuildd to build in Debug.

cmake --build _build --config Release -v --parallel=8 --target main_executable

Invoke the tests using ctest.

Use the rvtest common build alias to start the tests.

ctest --test-dir _build

You can run the test in parallel by specifying --parallel X, where X is the number of tests to run in parallel.

You can apply a filter with the -R flag to specify a regex.

You can run the tests with extra verbosity with the flag --extra-verbose.

Important: You cannot use --extra-verbose with --parallel. It's one or the other, not both.

Once the build ends, you can execute (or debug!) Open RV from the _build directory.

The path to the build is _build/stage/app. It contains everything required to have the proper debug symbols.

Invoke the install step using cmake. The install step prepares Open RV for packaging by building a copy of Open RV in the _install folder.

The build system allows you to prepackage Open RV using cmake's install command. It will strip debug symbols if required.

Then, it's up to you to either sign or package the result, or to do both. It should contain the minimum required to have a functional Open RV.

Use the rvinst common build alias to install OpenRV.

cmake --install _build --prefix _install