I am trying to build with opengl=ON in Windows 11, but am getting the errors below. I have no problems with opengl=OFF.

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C:\GGEMS\ggems>python setup.py build_ext --opengl=ON install --user
running build_ext
cmake C:\GGEMS\ggems -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DOPENGL_VISUALIZATION=ON -DCMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY_RELEASE=C:\GGEMS\ggems\build\lib.win-amd64-cpython-311
-- CUDA Toolkit: TRUE
-- CUDA Toolkit VERSION: 12.8.61
-- CUDA Toolkit INCLUDE DIRS: C:/Program Files/NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit/CUDA/v12.8/include
-- CUDA Toolkit LIBRARY DIR: C:/Program Files/NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit/CUDA/v12.8/lib/x64
CMake Error at C:/Program Files/CMake/share/cmake-4.2/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:290 (message):
  Could NOT find GLFW3 (missing: GLFW3_LIBRARY)
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  C:/Program Files/CMake/share/cmake-4.2/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:654 (_FPHSA_FAILURE_MESSAGE)
  cmake-config/FindGLFW3.cmake:49 (FIND_PACKAGE_HANDLE_STANDARD_ARGS)
  CMakeLists.txt:101 (FIND_PACKAGE)


-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
error: command 'C:\\Program Files\\CMake\\bin\\cmake.EXE' failed with exit code 1


The GGEMS v1.3 documentation instructs that GLFW should be installed in C:/Program Files (x86). I interpret this to mean there should be a folder C:\Program Files (x86)\GLFW that looks like below. Does it look right?

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C:\GGEMS\ggems>dir "C:\Program Files (x86)\GLFW"
 Volume in drive C is OS
 Volume Serial Number is CC8D-AE76

 Directory of C:\Program Files (x86)\GLFW

11/04/2025  07:07 PM    <DIR>          .
11/04/2025  07:05 PM    <DIR>          ..
11/04/2025  05:36 PM    <DIR>          docs
11/04/2025  05:36 PM    <DIR>          include
11/04/2025  05:36 PM    <DIR>          lib-mingw-w64
11/04/2025  05:36 PM    <DIR>          lib-static-ucrt
11/04/2025  05:36 PM    <DIR>          lib-vc2013
11/04/2025  05:36 PM    <DIR>          lib-vc2015
11/04/2025  05:36 PM    <DIR>          lib-vc2017
11/04/2025  05:36 PM    <DIR>          lib-vc2019
11/04/2025  05:36 PM    <DIR>          lib-vc2022
11/04/2025  05:25 PM               904 LICENSE.md
11/04/2025  05:25 PM             2,557 README.md
               2 File(s)          3,461 bytes
              11 Dir(s)  367,315,611,648 bytes free


At the moment CMake cannot find GLFW because it is probably missing the CMake configuration files that GLFW normally installs.
Even if you already have include/ and lib/, CMake requires the following files to be present:

C:\Program Files (x86)\GLFW\lib\cmake\glfw3\
    ├─ glfw3Config.cmake
    ├─ glfw3ConfigVersion.cmake
    └─ glfw3Targets.cmake

If this folder or these files are missing, then find_package(GLFW3) will always fail. GGEMS expects the CMake version of GLFW — not just the binaries.

Install GLFW from source using admin privilege

git clone https://github.com/glfw/glfw.git
cd glfw
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release  -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="C:/Program Files (x86)/GLFW"
cmake --build build --config Release
cmake --install build --config Release

Optional: If you want to automatically add GLFW/GLEW to your environment in PowerShell:

function OpenGL-cmd {
    $env:Path    += ";C:\Program Files (x86)\GLFW\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\GLEW\bin\Release\x64;"
    $env:Include += ";C:\Program Files (x86)\GLFW\include;C:\Program Files (x86)\GLEW\include;"
    $env:Lib     += ";C:\Program Files (x86)\GLFW\lib;C:\Program Files (x86)\GLEW\lib\Release\x64;"
}
Set-Alias -Name opengl -Value OpenGL-cmd

Then just type "opengl" in the terminal before building GGEMS. Let me know if you want the same instructions for GLEW or GLM.

Thanks, GLFW seems to have installed successfully.

I would indeed be grateful for similar instructions for GLEW and GLM. In particular, the GLEW repo referenced in the documentation
https://github.com/nigels-com/glew
does not appear to be CMake-friendly:

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C:\Users\MWJ12\Downloads\glew-master\glew-master>cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="C:/Program Files (x86)/GLEW"
CMake Error: The source directory "C:/Users/MWJ12/Downloads/glew-master/glew-master" does not appear to contain CMakeLists.txt.
Specify --help for usage, or press the help button on the CMake GUI.


Hi,

To use GLEW and GLM with GGEMS, please follow these steps:

- GLEW:
You simply need to install the official Windows binary from the GLEW website:
https://glew.sourceforge.net/
Direct download link: https://sourceforge.net/projects/glew/files/glew/2.1.0/glew-2.1.0-win32.zip/download
Once extracted and installed (typically under "C:/Program Files (x86)"), GLEW will be automatically detected by GGEMS during configuration, thanks to the FIND_PACKAGE(GLEW REQUIRED) command in CMake.
No manual CMake build of GLEW is needed on Windows.

- GLM:
You can install GLM by visiting the official repository:
https://github.com/g-truc/glm
Simply follow the installation recommendations provided there. GLM is a header-only library, so you usually just need to extract it and make sure its include path is visible to CMake.

Hope this helps and makes the setup smoother!