Friday, February 14, 2014

MeV and Java 3D in linux

Just another quick-post here (as I do not want to go through yet another registration process to leave a single comment in a somewhat silent thread). Also, this may be limited to working on my system. No warranties, support, etc.

As I have installed the Oracle JDK rather than IcedTea (incompatible with some other applications I use frequently), I've first downloaded Java3D from oracle. Currently available from here on the Oracle site. I'm running a 64-bit system, so I chose the -amd64 version, which works fine on Intel - the amd bit is a bit of a misnomer. When I mention java-3d.bin below, I mean whatever file you just downloaded).

First, completely exit MeV (including the small two-line window that I always forget about). Save your work first, if you want to get back to it. Make a backup of the original java3d files (in the lib subfolder, j3dcore.jar, j3dutils.jar, vecmath.jar) that shipped with MeV (or not, if you're happy to reinstall if anything goes wrong).
Open a terminal in the directory that you downloaded java-3d.bin. Then, make the downloaded .bin file executable (chmod +x java-3d.bin). Next, run the file (./java-3d.bin) and decide whether you agree with the license. If you do agree, the programme will extract a number of files in a subfolder of the current directory called 'lib'. Copy or link the three files in lib/ext to the lib/ folder of the MeV installation. Copy the file in /lib/amd64/ to the same folder as the other three files. Restart MeV. Load data. Try viewing/creating a 3D view. Works for me.