MacOS X Requirements

STEP Tools® SDK for MacOS supports the Apple M1 platform and the Intel platform. The SDK supports MacOS 11 (Big Sur) or better, with with Mach-O Universal ARM64/Intel x64 libraries built with Clang Xcode 12 for dynamic linking as well as plain and position-independent (-fPIC) static linking.

The EXPRESS-G Editor and STEP browser are X11 GUI applications that require the X Window System. The XCode and X11 packages are available from the Apple web site.

Install Procedure

The STEP Tools® development stack is spread across several packages. The Core SDK package contains software needed for all types of data, with separate STEP and IFC Stacks that covers applications based on those models.

  1. To install, unzip the package into the desired installation directory. This will create a directory called steptools_20. You can unpack distributions for many platforms into the same directory. The binaries for each platform are in separate subdirectories under "bin" and the libraries for different compiler configs are in separate subdirectories under "lib".
    % cd /my/dest/dir
    % unzip stdev_core_20_0_macosx.zip
    

    The libraries are built for several different compiler configurations. All libraries are built with -arch arm64 and -arch x86_64 for native Apple Silicon and Intel 64bit support. These are kept in separate directories as shown below:

    <install-dir>/lib/macosx_all_clang    		Clang, static libraries
    <install-dir>/lib/macosx_all_clang_pic    	Clang, static libraries with -fPIC
    <install-dir>/lib/macosx_all_clang_shared 	Clang, dynamic  libraries (.dylib)
    
  2. In the steptools_20 directory, run the stdev_install script, which creates environment settings with the install location and C++ compiler version that you plan to use.
    % cd steptools_20
    % ./stdev_install
    
  3. Request, and then install a license key as described in Software License Keys. We will send the key by e-mail.

  4. Install the STEP Stack or IFC Stack as required. Simply unzip the package on top of the install directory.

The install script creates rose_logicals.sh (for Bash) and rose_logicals.csh (for C Shell) in the installation directory. These set environment variables for paths to the development files. Check them to make sure the settings are correct.

Evaluate rose_logicals.sh/csh when you start a new shell. This appends $ROSE_BIN to your search path and may set $ROSE_LIB to the shared library path. Make sure these are always set before you use any of the development tools.

% . rose_logicals.sh