*Posted November 6, 2015

Say you already have an AR Sandbox that’s humming along like a well-tuned Swiss watch, but you want to update to new software versions to get the yummy new features. How do you do that without having to start over from scratch?

In the worst case (as in when moving from SARndbox-1.5-001 to SARndbox-1.6), you have to update three software packages: Vrui, Kinect, and SARndbox itself.

Of those three, Vrui and Kinect can be updated in-place without any data loss, and SARndbox will install into a new directory, and you can copy over your settings. Still, start by backing up everything, just in case:
$ cd ~
$ tar cfz Vrui-3.1-old.tar.gz Vrui-3.1/
$ cd src
$ tar cfz SARndbox-old.tar.gz SARndbox-/

(I’m assuming default installation locations throughout.)

This creates two tarballs (Vrui-3.1-old.tar.gz and SARndbox-old.tar.gz), which you keep in a safe place.

To update Vrui from any 3.1 version to 3.1-004:
$ cd ~/src
$ wget -O - http://idav.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/ResDev/Vrui/Vrui-3.1-004.tar.gz | tar xfz -

This downloads and unpacks Vrui-3.1-004, into a new directory
~/src/Vrui-3.1-004.
$ cd ~/src/Vrui-3.1-004
$ time make -j8
$ make install

This installs the new Vrui over the previous 3.1 installation in ~/Vrui-3.1, but retaining all custom configuration files.

Then download, unpack, make, and install Kinect-2.8-002, if you don’t already have it:
$ cd ~/src
$ wget -O - http://idav.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/ResDev/Kinect/Kinect-2.8-002.tar.gz | tar xfz -
$ cd Kinect-2.8-002
$ time make -j8
$ make install

If you do already have Kinect-2.8-002, clean it out and re-make instead of downloading again:
$ cd ~/src/Kinect-2.8-002
$ make squeakyclean
$ time make -j8
$ make install

Then download, unpack, and make SARndbox-1.6:
$ cd ~/src
$ wget -O - http://idav.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/ResDev/SARndbox/SARndbox-1.6.tar.gz | tar xfz -
$ cd SARndbox-1.6
$ time make -j8

Finally, copy over your old configuration:
$ cp ~/src/SARndbox-/etc/SARndbox-/* etc/SARndbox-1.6
$ cp ~/src/SARndbox-/share/SARndbox-/* share/SARndbox-1.6

Then you run SARndbox as before, and everything should look exactly as before. If not, time to unpack those backups.

Problems:

• • Running 2.2, there is no elevation colors and the water simulation does not work → Add -uhm (“use height map”) to the command line to enable color mapping. This should also enable rain, but if it doesn’t, explicitly specify a rain elevation range via -rer (e.g., -rer 20 100)
  • How to update from SARndbox-2.2 to 2.3? → If all configuration stuff is in …/etc/SARndbox-<version>, only have to copy over the share directory if put custom shaders in there (e.g., lava shaders). Need to copy the entire share hierarchy, not just the share/SARndbox-<previous version> directory itself: cp -R ~/src/SARndbox-/share/SARndbox- share/
  • Updating from 1.6 to 2.3, getting ‘no such file or directory exists’ when run $ cd ~/src → Follow installation instructions for SARndbox-1.6: should have a ~/src directory with the three packages (Vrui, Kinect, SARndbox) in it OR start over with newest software versions and full installation instruction
  • How to update to latest versions of software, is it just installing the updated apps ‘overtop’ of the older ones? Does the Vrui Development Tookit need to be upgraded?