classInstallation

Installing binaries

Extends from Modelica.Icons.Information (Icon for general information packages).

Information

Installation of binaries

The official release of the Modelica Buildings Library that can be downloaded at simulationresearch.lbl.gov/modelica/download.html contains all binaries required to simulated the models in Buildings.ThermalZones_24_2_0. You should not have to do any other installations or settings and skip the instructions below.

However, binaries can also be downloaded and installed either using an installation script or using a manual installation. This is only required for users who clone the Buildings library from github. Developers may install or build these binaries individually.

There are three different binaries:

  1. The Spawn of EnergyPlus library that contains a special version of EnergyPlus.
  2. The Modelica to EnergyPlus library that provides a layer to link Modelica with EnergyPlus.
  3. The fmi-library that provides the API functions that communicate with EnergyPlus.

To install or build these libraries, proceed as described below.

Spawn of EnergyPlus library

If the Buildings library is cloned from github, then the EnergyPlus libraries need to be installed by running 

Buildings/Resources/src/ThermalZones/install.py --binaries-for-os-only

To install the binaries for all operating systems, omit the flag --binaries-for-os-only.

Modelica to EnergyPlus

Rebuilding this library requires CMake to be installed.

To rebuild the library, run 

cd modelica-buildings
rm -rf build && mkdir build && cd build && \
  cmake ../ && cmake --build . --target install && \
  cd .. && rm -rf build
fmi-library

Rebuilding this library requires CMake to be installed.

To rebuild the library, run 

cd Buildings/Resources/src/fmi-library
rm -rf build && mkdir build && \
  cd build && cmake .. && cmake --build . && \
  cd .. && rm -rf build
Manual installation of the libraries without using a script

Alternatively, instead of using install.py, the binaries can be downloaded from the following links:

Operating systemLink
Linux https://spawn.s3.amazonaws.com/custom/Spawn-light-0.6.0-9f1b36b00b-Linux.tar.gz
Windows https://spawn.s3.amazonaws.com/custom/Spawn-light-0.6.0-9f1b36b00b-win64.zip

To install, proceed as follows:

Operating systemLink
Linux

Run from a terminal 

wget https://spawn.s3.amazonaws.com/custom/Spawn-light-0.6.0-9f1b36b00b-Linux.tar.gz;
tar xzf Spawn-light-0.6.0-9f1b36b00b-Linux.tar.gz;
export PATH=${PATH}:`pwd`/Spawn-light-0.6.0-9f1b36b00b-Linux/bin

and restart your Modelica environment. You may put the last line in your ${HOME}/.bashrc file to make the setting persistent when you log in the next time.

Windows
  1. Download the binary from the link above.
  2. Unzip Spawn-light-0.6.0-9f1b36b00b-win64.zip at your desired location.
  3. Add the directory xyz/Spawn-light-0.6.0-9f1b36b00b-win64/bin to your PATH environment variable.
  4. Restart your Modelica environment.

How is spawn invoked?

Modelica tries to invoke spawn-0.6.0-9f1b36b00b[.exe] in this order:

  1. On Linux, it searches for 
    Buildings[ x.y.z]/Resources/bin/spawn-0.6.0-9f1b36b00b/linux64/bin/spawn-0.6.0-9f1b36b00b
    and on Windows, it searches for 
    Buildings[ x.y.z]/Resources/bin/spawn-0.6.0-9f1b36b00b/win64/bin/spawn-0.6.0-9f1b36b00b.exe
    where Buildings[ x.y.z] is the installation folder of the Modelica Buildings Library. This file is distributed with the Modelica Buildings Library installation, together with all files needed to translate and simulate a model in a Modelica environment.
  2. If not found, it searches on the environment variable SPAWNPATH for spawn-0.6.0-9f1b36b00b[.exe].
  3. If not found, it searches on the environment variable PATH for spawn-0.6.0-9f1b36b00b[.exe].

If none of this succeeds, it will stop with an error.