Install VS Code

Download VS Code for Ubuntu (.deb): https://code.visualstudio.com/download

Install

cd ~/Downloads
sudo dpkg -i code_1.61.2-1634656828_amd64.deb

Install Prerequisites

sudo apt-get install git
sudo apt-get install cmake
sudo apt-get install libpython3.8-dev

CMake > 3.13

Needed for the command target Download newest cmake version from https://cmake.org/download/

Remove old version if present

sudo apt remove cmake

Unpack

cd ~/Downloads
tar -xf cmake-3.22.0-rc2.tar.gz

Install

cd cmake-3.22.0-rc2
./bootstrap
make
make install

Add cmake to PATH

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/share/cmake-3.22

Upgrade Python to 3.8 on Debian 9

https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-install-python-3-8-on-debian-10/

Install the necessary packages to build Python source

sudo apt install build-essential zlib1g-dev libncurses5-dev libgdbm-dev libnss3-dev libssl-dev libsqlite3-dev libreadline-dev libffi-dev curl libbz2-dev

Download the latest source code from the Python download page with wget.

cd ~/Downloads
wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.8.12/Python-3.8.12.tgz

When the download is complete, extract the tarball.

tar -xf Python-3.8.12.tgz

Navigate to the Python source directory and run the configure script.

cd Python-3.8.12
./configure --enable-optimizations

Run make to start the build process

make -j 4

Once the build is done, install the Python binaries by running the following command as a user with sudo access. Do not use the standard make install as it will overwrite the default system python3 binary.

sudo make altinstall

Verify the installation

python3.8 --version

You can install packages using the corresponsing pip module.

python3.8 -m pip install trimesh

Install OpenCASCADE

https://realglitch.com/2020/04/how-to-install-opencascade-7-4-on-ubuntu-18-04-lts/

Install dependencies

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo apt-get install libtool autoconf automake gfortran gdebi
sudo apt-get install gcc-multilib libxi-dev libxmu-dev libxmu-headers
sudo apt-get install libx11-dev mesa-common-dev libglu1-mesa-dev
sudo apt-get install libfontconfig1-dev
sudo apt-get install libfreetype6 libfreetype6-dev
sudo apt-get install tcl tcl-dev tk tk-dev

Download opencascade-7.5.0.tar.gz, then unpack and build it with cmake

cd ~/Downloads
tar xf opencascade-7.5.0.tgz
mkdir occt
cd occt
cmake ../opencascade-7.5.0
make

Copy occt/ to ./externals/occt

Setup Module

Clone pybind to externals

mkdir externals
cd externals
git clone https://github.com/pybind/pybind11.git

Create source file ./src/module.cpp

#include <pybind11/pybind11.h>

namespace py = pybind11;

float some_fn(float arg1, float arg2) {
    return arg1 + arg2;
}

// The module name 'spark' must match the module definition in CMakeLists.txt
PYBIND11_MODULE(spark, handle) {
    handle.doc() = "This is a doc";
    handle.def("some_fn", &some_fn);
}

Create ./CMakeLists.txt

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.7)

project(pybind_example)

set(EXTERNALS "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/externals")
set(MODULE_SOURCE "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/src")
add_subdirectory("${EXTERNALS}/pybind11")

# make sure 'spark' matches the module name
pybind11_add_module("spark" "${MODULE_SOURCE}/module.cpp")

Build

Make build directory and generate build files

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..

Build the files

make

Test the module in python

python3

>>> import spark
>>> spark.some_fn(1,4)
5