			    BRL-CAD
			 Release 7.38.2
		       http://brlcad.org/

BRL-CAD is a powerful cross-platform open source combinatorial
solid modeling system that includes an interactive 3D solid geometry
editor, a network-distributed symmetric multiprocessing (SMP)
high-performance ray-tracer with support for rendering and geometric
analysis, image and signal-processing tools, a system performance
analysis benchmark suite, a flexible geometry scripting interface,
and a high-performance geometric representation and analysis library.


TABLE OF CONTENTS
-----------------
  Introduction
  Table of Contents
  Getting Started
  Compile and Install
  Benchmark
  Communication
  Bug Reports/Feature Requests
  Distribution Details
  Background Information


GETTING STARTED
---------------

This README file exists only to provide you a brief roadmap to the
contents of the BRL-CAD distribution.

Some platforms have additional platform-specific documentation that
should be consulted after reading this file:

  doc/README.Windows    -- Microsoft Windows
  doc/README.MacOSX     -- Apple Mac OS X
  doc/README.Linux      -- Various Linux distributions
  doc/README.*          -- Other platforms, e.g., BSD, VAX

Information on how to install and run the software, to get involved
with development, or to run the performance benchmark test suite are
covered in detail in separate standalone documents.  For more details
on what BRL-CAD provides, consult the main website.

Information relevant to the source code is contained in the HACKING
(developer guide) and COPYING (legal overview) files.

Note that only sample geometry models are included in public
distributions of BRL-CAD.  Detailed models are only available through
official U.S. Gov't channels, e.g., via Advanced Joint Effectiveness
Model (AJEM) support.


COMPILE AND INSTALL
-------------------

In order to compile and install BRL-CAD from a source distribution,
the latest CMake ( http://www.cmake.org ), a recent compiler, and at
least 3GB of disk space are recommended.  More details are available
at https://brlcad.org/wiki/Compiling

Typically, the following steps should result in a successful install:

  tar -xvzf brlcad-VERSION.tar.gz
  mkdir brlcad-VERSION/build
  cd brlcad-VERSION/build
  cmake .. -DBRLCAD_ENABLE_STRICT=OFF -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
  make -j4
  make install

See the included INSTALL text file for explanation of the various
cmake configuration options available for building BRL-CAD.


BENCHMARK
---------

After the build successfully completes, you will be able to verify
basic functionality by running the BRL-CAD Benchmark.  Running the
benchmark suite is integrated into the build system such that any time
after running CMake (in the cmake gui, configure and generate must both
be performed) you may run:

  make benchmark

If the build is successful, you will see "CORRECT" numbers and a
performance summary at the end.  The "vgr" line effectively shows you
approximately how much faster your machine is to a VAX 11/780.  After
installing BRL-CAD, you may run the 'benchmark' tool as well to run
the BRL-CAD Benchmark.

See the paper in doc/benchmark.tr for information on analyzing and
comparing the results of the benchmark tests in more detail.


COMMUNICATION
-------------

There are various BRL-CAD mailing lists available including three
developer-oriented lists, a user list, and a read-only news
announcement list:

  http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=105292

For interactive discussion, please join our Zulip chat:

  https://brlcad.zulipchat.com


BUG REPORTS AND FEATURE REQUESTS
--------------------------------

Please submit all bugs, support requests, and feature requests to:

  https://github.com/BRL-CAD/brlcad/issues


DISTRIBUTION DETAILS
--------------------

BRL-CAD releases are available at:

https://github.com/BRL-CAD/brlcad/releases

Assets stored for each release will always include source archives,
and usually binary compilations for commonly used operating systems.

For developers, BRL-CAD is available via Git version control cloning:

https://github.com/BRL-CAD/brlcad


BACKGROUND INFORMATION
----------------------

BRL-CAD is the primary tri-service solid modeling CAD system used by
the U.S. military to model weapons systems for vulnerability and
lethality analyses.  The solid modeling system is frequently used in a
wide range of military and industrial application including in the
design and analysis of vehicles, mechanical parts, and architecture.
The package has also been used in radiation dose planning, medical
visualization, computer graphics education, CSG concepts and modeling
education, and system performance benchmark testing among other
purposes.

Actively developed since 1979, BRL-CAD is a collection of more than
400 tools, utilities, and applications comprising more than a million
lines of source code.  BRL-CAD supports a great variety of geometric
representations including an extensive set of traditional CSG
primitive implicit solids such as boxes, ellipsoids, cones, and tori,
as well as explicit solids made from closed collections of Uniform
B-Spline Surfaces, Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline (NURBS) surfaces,
n-Manifold Geometry (NMG), and purely faceted mesh geometry.  All
geometric objects may be combined using boolean set-theoretic CSG
operations including union, intersection, and difference.

BRL-CAD has been under active development for more than 20 years with
a portability heritage that includes systems such as a DEC VAX-11/780
running 4.3 BSD; DECStations running ULTRIX; Silicon Graphics 3030, 4D
"IRIS", O2, Onyx, and Origin systems running various versions of IRIX;
Sun Microsystems Sun-3 and Sun-4 Sparcs running SunOS; the Cray 1,
Cray X-MP, Cray Y-MP, and Cray 2 running UNICOS; DEC Alpha AXP running
OSF/1; Apple Macintosh II running A/UX; iPSC/860 Hypercube running
NX/2; the Alliant FX/8, FX/80, and FX/2800; Gould/Encore SEL PowerNode
6000/9000 and NP1; NeXT workstations; IBM RS/6000; HPPA 9000/700
running HPUX; Ardent/Stardent; Encore Multi-Max; and much much more.
BRL-CAD's extensive portability of course also includes a plethora of
common desktop and server versions of BSD, IRIX, Solaris, Mac OS X,
Linux, and Windows.

The BRL-CAD package is intentionally designed to be extensively
cross-platform and is actively developed on and maintained for many
common operating system environments including various BSD
distributions, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, and Windows.  The entire
package is distributed in binary and source code form as free open
source software (FOSS), provided under Open Source Initiative (OSI)
approved license terms.  BRL-CAD was released as open source in
December 2004. See the COPYING file for more details.

Best Wishes,
The BRL-CAD Development Team
devs@brlcad.org
