OpenSim Creator

A UI for building OpenSim models

📥 Download the latest release here, ▶️ Watch Introduction Videos Here

OpenSim Creator (osc) is a standalone UI for building and editing OpenSim models. It is available as a freestanding all-in-one installer for Windows 10 (or newer), MacOS Ventura (or newer), and Ubuntu 20 (or newer).

Architecturally, osc is a C++ codebase that is directly integrated against the OpenSim core C++ API. It otherwise only uses lightweight open-source libraries that can easily be built from source (e.g. SDL2, OpenGL, ImGui) to implement the UI on all target platforms. This makes osc fairly easy to build, integrate, and package.

osc started development in 2021 in the Biomechanical Engineering department at TU Delft. It is currently funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's "Essential Open Source Software for Science" grant (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative DAF, 2020-218896 (5022)).

Project Sponsors
Biomechanical Engineering at TU Delft	Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

🚀 Installing

You can download a release from the 📥 releases page. The latest release is 📥 here. Also, OpenSim Creator is regularly built from source using GitHub Actions, so if you want a bleeding-edge--but unreleased--build of OpenSim Creator check ⚡ the actions page (downloading a CI build requires being logged into GitHub; otherwise, you won't see download links).

Windows (10 or newer)

• Download an exe release
• Run the .exe installer, continue past any security warnings
• Follow the familiar next, next, finish wizard
• Run OpenSimCreator by typing OpenSimCreator in your start menu, or browse to C:\Program Files\OpenSimCreator\.

Mac (Ventura or newer)

• Download a dmg release
• Double click the dmg file to mount it
• Drag osc into your Applications directory.
• Browse to the Applications directory in Finder
• Right-click the osc application, click open, continue past any security warnings to run osc for the first time
• After running it the first time, you can boot it as normal (e.g. Command+Space, osc, Enter)

Ubuntu (20 or newer)

• Download a deb release
• Double-click the .deb package and install it through your package manager UI.
• Alternatively, you can install it through the command-line: apt-get install -yf ./osc-X.X.X_amd64.deb (or similar).
• Once installed, the osc or OpenSim Creator shortcuts should be available from your desktop, or you can browse to /opt/osc

🏗️ Building

Note: The build instructions here are for general users who just want to build OSC.

Because everyone's C++ build environment is slightly different, there are no catch-all build instructions that will work for everyone. Instead, we recommend reading + running the automated build scripts, or reading some of the basic tips-and-tricks for Visual Studio or QtCreator (below).

Windows

1. Get git:
   1. Download+install it from https://git-scm.com/downloads
   2. Make sure to add it to the PATH. Usually, the installer asks if you want this. If it doesn't ask, then you may need to add it manually (google: "Modify windows PATH", add your git install: C:\Program Files\Git\bin)
   3. Verify it's installed by opening a terminal (Shift+Right-Click -> Open Powershell window here) and run git
2. Get C++20-compatible compiler (Visual Studio 17 2022):
   1. Download+install it from https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/
   2. Make sure to select C/C++ development in the installer wizard when it asks you what parts you would like to install
3. Get cmake:
   1. Download+install it from https://cmake.org/download/
   2. Make sure to add it to the PATH. Usually, the installer asks if you want this. If it doesn't ask, then you may need to add it manually (google: "Modify windows PATH", add your cmake install: C:\Program Files\CMake\bin)
   3. Verify it's installed by opening a terminal (Shift+Right-Click -> Open Powershell window here) and run cmake
4. Get NSIS:
   1. Download+install it from https://nsis.sourceforge.io/Download
5. Get python and pip:
   1. Download from https://www.python.org/downloads/
   2. Make sure python and pip are added to the PATH (the installer usually prompts this)
   3. Verify they are installed by opening a terminal (Shift+Right-Click -> Open Powershell window here) and run python --help and pip --help
6. Build OpenSim Creator in a PowerShell terminal:
   1. Open a PowerShell terminal (Shift+Right-Click -> Open Powershell window here)
   2. Clone opensim-creator: git clone https://github.com/ComputationalBiomechanicsLab/opensim-creator
   3. cd into the source dir: cd opensim-creator
   4. Run the build script: python .\scripts\build_windows.py (warning: can take a long time)
7. Done:
   1. The osc-build directory should contain the built installer

Mac

1. Get brew:
   1. Go to https://brew.sh/ and follow installation instructions
2. Get git:
   1. Can be installed via brew: brew install git
3. Get C++20-compatible compiler (e.g. clang via brew, or newer XCodes):
   1. OpenSim Creator is a C++20 project, so you'll have to use a more recent XCode (>14), or install a newer clang from brew (e.g. brew install clang)
4. Get cmake:
   1. Can be installed via brew: brew install cmake
5. Get python and pip (optional: you only need this if you want to build documentation):
   1. Can be installed via brew: brew install python
6. Build OpenSim Creator in a terminal:
   1. Clone opensim-creator: git clone https://github.com/ComputationalBiomechanicsLab/opensim-creator
   2. cd into the source dir: cd opensim-creator
   3. If you have multiple C++ compilers, make sure that the CC and CXX environment variables point to compilers that are compatible with C++20. E.g. export CXX=$(brew --prefix llvm@15)/bin/clang++
   4. Run the build script: scripts/build_mac.sh (warning: can take a long time)
7. Done:
   1. The osc-build directory should contain the built installer

Linux (Ubuntu)

1. Get git:
   1. Install git via your package manager (e.g. apt-get install git)
2. Get C++20-compatible compiler:
   1. Install g++/clang++ via your package manager (e.g. apt-get install g++)
   2. Make sure either of them are new enough to compile C++20
   3. If they aren't new enough, most Linux OSes provide a way to install a newer compiler toolchain (e.g. apt-get install g++-11)
3. Get cmake:
   1. Install cmake via your package manager (e.g. apt-get install cmake)
4. Get python and pip (optional: you only need this if you want to build documentation):
   1. Install python3 and pip3 via your package manager (e.g. apt-get install python3 pip3)
5. Build OpenSim Creator in a terminal:
   1. Clone opensim-creator: git clone https://github.com/ComputationalBiomechanicsLab/opensim-creator
   2. cd into the source dir: cd opensim-creator
   3. If you have multiple C++ compilers, make sure that the CC and CXX environment variables point to compilers that are compatible with C++20. E.g. export CXX=g++-12
   4. Run the build script: scripts/build_debian-buster.sh
6. Done:
   1. The osc-build directory should contain the built installer

💻 Dev-Environment Setup

These are some generic tips that might be handy when setting up your own development environment.

Visual Studio 2022

• Run build_windows.py --skip-osc (described above) to get a complete build of OSC's dependencies.
• In Visual Studio 2020, open opensim-creator as a folder project
• Later versions of Visual Studio (i.e. 2017+) should have in-built CMake support that automatically detects that the folder is a CMake project
• Right-click the CMakeLists.txt file to edit settings or build the project
  • You may need to set your configure command arguments to point to the dependencies install (e.g. -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=$(projectDir)/osc-dependencies-install)
• Use the Switch between solutions and available views button in the Solution Explorer hierarchy tab to switch to the CMake Targets View
• Right-click the osc CMake target and Set As Startup Project, so that pressing F5 will then build+run osc.exe
• (optional): switch the solution explorer view to a Folder View after doing this: the CMake view is crap for developing osc
• You should now be able to build+run osc from Visual Studio
• To run tests, open the Test Explorer tab, which should list all of the googletest tests in the project

QtCreator

• Run the appropriate (OS-dependent) buildscript (described above)
• Open QtCreator and then open the opensim-creator source directory as a folder
• For selecting a "kit", QtCreator usually detects that osc-build already exists (side-effect of running the buildscript). You may need to "import existing kit/build" and then select osc-build, though
• Once QtCreator knows your source dir (opensim-creator/) and build/kit (opensim-creator/osc-build), it should be good to go

📖 Citing/Acknowledging

OpenSim Creator doesn't have a central written software publication that you can cite (yet 😉). However, if you need to directly cite OpenSim Creator (e.g. because you think it's relevant that you built a model with it), the closest thing you can use is our DOI-ed Zenodo releases (metadata available in this repo: CITATION.cff/codemeta.json):

Kewley, A., Beesel, J., & Seth, A. (2024). OpenSim Creator (0.5.11). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10930805

If you need a general citation for the simulation/modelling technique, you can directly cite OpenSim via this paper:

Seth A, Hicks JL, Uchida TK, Habib A, Dembia CL, et al. (2018) OpenSim: Simulating musculoskeletal dynamics and neuromuscular control to study human and animal movement. PLOS Computational Biology 14(7): e1006223. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006223

🥰 Contributing

If you would like to contribute to OpenSim Creator then thank you 🥰: it's people like you that make open-source awesome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for more details.