Migrating an old project from sofa 17.12 to a more recent version 21.12

[Xavier-OM]

Hi folks,
I've got an old project which is using sofa 17.12, and I'm trying to update it to a more recent version (not the latest one for now, for technical reasons)

But this project (made by @alxbilger , hi Alex :-) ! ) is using some old includes, for which I can't find an equivalent. Ex:

#include <SofaSimulationTree/init.h>
#include <SofaSimulationTree/TreeSimulation.h>
#include <SofaSimulationTree/GNode.h>
#include <SofaSimulationCommon/init.h>
#include <SofaComponentCommon/initComponentCommon.h>
#include <SofaComponentBase/initComponentBase.h>

I cannot find any SofaSimulationTree, nor GNode.h in v21.12, but as the package is mentioned here
https://www.sofa-framework.org/community/doc/programming-with-sofa/sofa-packages/
I think I'm missing something obvious...

Could you tell me where I could find any doc about migrating between versions ?
Or some specific doc, related to a version (a bit like https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_62_0/ vs. https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_82_0/) ?

I'm interested in the evolution of the architecture of the project, regarding cmake targets or include path to use or deprecated modules + their replacements.

Thanks in advance,
Xavier Cremaschi.

[hugtalbot]

Hey @Xavier-OM !

Welcome! Wow v17.12 is what an age ago
Most of the changes for includes can be found here : https://www.sofa-framework.org/community/doc/using-sofa/sofa-ng-migration/#mapping-deprecated-modules-new-libraries

You can also rely on the CHANGELOG.md

Let me know whether these materials help.
Could you also tell us more about your work and institution ?

[Xavier-OM]

Thanks for the information, I will dig this (still searching for SimulationTree)

I work for QuantifiCare (a spin-off of INRIA Sophia-Antipolis) which made a software to simulate breast implant surgery in 2016-17.
To do it the company hired @alxbilger back then, who decided to use Sofa to perform the simulation. There were no major updates since, excepted bug fixes so we never upgraded sofa, but I would like to do it for maintainability reasons.

[alxbilger]

Hi @Xavier-OM,

Nice to hear from you. I came back to SOFA two years ago, otherwise I am not sure I was able to help.

Check this file. SofaSimulationTree has been deprecated, and not replaced.

Explanation: SOFA was able to deal with different "types" of simulations, where the node and scene graph data structures can be changed. In your case, you seem to use a scene graph based on a tree. Today, we are dropping this kind of simulation to focus only on "directed acyclic graph (DAG)". So I suggest to move to a DAGSimulation (instead of TreeSimulation) which uses DAGNode (instead of GNode). Note that because DAGSimulation will be the only "type" of simulation supported, future releases will probably not include the complexity of choosing the type. Setup will be easier.

Note that the release you target v21.12 is not the latest. We are currently at v23.06.

[hugtalbot]

Oh nice to read that you 're at Quantificare @Xavier-OM
Let us know if you are struggling too much, we could arrange a meeting.

By the way, is this a maintenance-only effort or do you have a new project starting?

[Xavier-OM]

Thanks @alxbilger it's exactly the kind of information I needed, I'll see to replace SimulationTree by its graph version then ! Regarding version I will probably try to update to the latest one after this.

@hugtalbot maintenance-only unfortunately

[Xavier-OM]

I managed to compile my code with sofa v21.12 ! Now I'm trying to do it with latest version 23.06 to see what happens.

FYI I disable some things (SOFA_WITH_OPENGL, PLUGIN_CIMGPLUGIN, SOFAGUI_QT, etc) but with 23.06 there is a new PLUGIN_SOFA_MATRIX which is ON by default and requires PLUGIN_CIMGPLUGIN so cmake will fail in my case. So for peace of mind and to make it work I have disabled all plugins enabled by default (PLUGIN_ARTICULATEDSYSTEMPLUGIN, PLUGIN_SOFAMATRIX, PLUGIN_SOFAVALIDATION and PLUGIN_SOFA_GUI_QT) as I have no use for them.
But you may want to check why there is a dependency between a matrix component and CImg, it seems a bit weird to me.

[alxbilger]

You are right to disable those plugins. I guess you can even try to disable some of the SOFA modules containing components (modules starting with Sofa.Component.*) that you don't use, if really you want to have a minimal package.

SofaMatrix is a plugin containing tools related to matrices. And one of these tools is the ability to export a sparse matrix as an image. That is why there is a dependency to CImgPlugin. However, CImgPlugin is no longer required as we have now the ability to save image in the SOFA core. I made a pull request to remove this dependency.

[github-actions[bot]]

⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️
@Xavier-OM
We are setting a new forum management policy: topics like this one, in which the last reply is more than 4 months old, will automatically be closed. Without further news in the coming weeks, our bot will proceed to automatic closure, thus keeping this forum clean and fresh 🌱 Thank you for your understanding

[github-actions[bot]]

⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️
@Xavier-OM
In accordance with our forum management policy, the last reply is more than 4 months old and is therefore closed. Our objective is to keep the forum up to date and offer the best support experience.

Please feel free to reopen it if the topic is still active by providing us with an update. Please feel free to open a new thread at any time - we'll be happy to help where and when we can.

[github-actions[bot]]

⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️
@Xavier-OM
In accordance with our forum management policy, the last reply is more than 4 months old and is therefore closed. Our objective is to keep the forum up to date and offer the best support experience.

Please feel free to reopen it if the topic is still active by providing us with an update. Please feel free to open a new thread at any time - we'll be happy to help where and when we can.