Before building the IDV you need to first install Java and Java 3D on your system. You need to use the Java SDK, because the Java RunTime Environment (JRE) does not contain the Java compiler (javac). You need to use a version of Java 1.5 (preferably the latest version). You can use either the Java 3D SDK or JRE, version 1.3.x.

You will also need to install Ant (http://ant.apache.org/) on your machine. Ant is similar to make - instead of a Makefile, Ant uses a build.xml file. Be sure to follow the instructions for installing Ant, especially those for setting up environment variables.

Download the IDV source files from the Unidata Web Site (under Downloads->IDV->Source):

1. Open the IDV Downloads page in a new window by clicking here.
2. Under "IDV 6.3 Documentation and Source Code", click on the IDV 6.3 Source Code link to start the download. You will be prompted for a location to save the file to. Save it to the idv directory you just created.
3. You will also need the set of ancillary libraries (VisAD, netCDF, etc) that the IDV uses contained in the zip file: IDV 6.3 Jar Files. Save this to the idv directory.
4. After the download is complete, close the extra browser window.

You are now ready to install the IDV source.

1. Open a terminal window.
2. Change to the idv directory (if you are not already there).
3. unJAR the source file.

   jar  xvf  (downloaddir)/idv_src_6.3.jar

   This will create a "src" directory underneath the install directory (where you unJAR'ed the file).

4. Next, you need to create a src directory as a peer of the ucar directory under idv that holds the ancillary JAR files from the IDV Binary distribution that are needed to build the classes. The structure will look like this:

   idv
      |
      +----src
      |
      +----lib (holds the ancillary jar files).
   

5. Change to the lib (if you are not already there).

   cd  /home/idv/idv/lib

6. Unzip the file you downloaded into this directory.

   unzip  ../(downloaddir)/idv_jars_6.3.zip

1. From the download directory execute the ant command to build idv.jar.

   ant  idvjar

   This removes all Java class files (there will be none the first time), re-builds them and creates the idv.jar file, copying it to the lib directory.

2. To run the IDV using your build:
   • Change to the lib directory

     cd  ../lib

   • then run:

     java  -Xmx1024m  -jar idv.jar

Unidata IDV Workshop for version 6.3 > Java Developer Topics > Development Environment