HdAurora deployment on Linux and usdview rendering issues
- Dominant language
- C++
- Stars
- 620
- Forks
- 57
- PR merge metrics
- No merged PRs in 30d
Description
Hello there,
thx for publishing this awesome renderer.
Since I want to use USD and Hydra mostly on Linux I gave it a try to run HdAurora on Linux.
**Several steps were necessary to build and deploy hdAurora:**
1. First of all, the [`deployHdAurora.py`](https://github.com/Autodesk/Aurora/blob/acf551346e9c78d3045b8b9b883e75176ae83ad9/Scripts/deployHdAurora.py) does not support linux for now.
I've made (quick) adjustments here:
https://github.com/lindemeier/Aurora/blob/73809a1291b107742ad7c0571606c40242083835/Scripts/deployHdAurora.py
2. The lib in `pluginInfo.json` needs to be named accordingly:
https://github.com/lindemeier/Aurora/blob/73809a1291b107742ad7c0571606c40242083835/Libraries/HdAurora/resources/linux/plugInfo.json
3. Upgrade boost to 1.78 due to compilation errors.
After executing these steps I was able to run usdview in a conda environment setup with all python dependencies.
After starting `usdview` directly with `Aurora` as renderer and the USD "Kitchen_Set" as input scene, I get the following output:

The terminal is spammed with:
```bash
v22.11/pxr/base/vt/value.cpp : 'Attempted to get value of type 'VtArray' from empty VtValue.'
Error in '*pxrInternal_v0_22__pxrReserved__::VtValue::_FailGet' at line 562 in file /home/zotlinde/dev/Aurora/externals/src/USD-22.08-Aurora-v22.11/pxr/base/vt/value.cpp : 'Attempted to get value of type 'VtArray' from empty VtValue.'
```
**I tried to run it on the following operating systems:**
- Ubuntu 22.04 (native)
- Ubuntu 20.04 (docker image based on a NVIDIA cudagl image). Here step 3 was not necessary, since boost built with no error here (due to the gcc version I'd assume).
Both showed the exact same behavior.
**Further information:**
I tried `gcc` and `clang-12`. No difference.
Contributor guide
Research direction
Start with Scripts/deployHdAurora.py and the Linux Libraries/HdAurora/resources/linux/plugInfo.json example, then reproduce the deployment in usdview using the Kitchen_Set scene. Compare the reported Linux build steps and investigate the repeated empty VtValue errors; done means the renderer deploys on Linux and usdview no longer shows the reported rendering failure.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- cpp, linux, python
- Domain
- build-system, computer-graphics, operating-systems
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 30/100