Note: The build system has recently been switched to CMake which is a cross-platform system for managing the build process. If you are familiar with the old GNU Build Tools (automake, autoconf, and configure) you can probably skip over to the CMake quick start guide in README.CMake.
You do not need to read these instructions unless you plan to build and install the programs manually.
GMT has been installed successfully under UNIX/Linux/OS X on workstations. It also installs under Windows and in UNIX emulators such as Cygwin or on virtual machines. We anticipate few problems if you are installing the package on other platforms.
Note there are three GMT tar archives available (#3 is optional):
- gmt-6.x.x.tar.bz2: The GMT 6 distribution
- gshhg-gmt-2.x.x.tar.gz: All five resolutions of GSHHG coastline data
- dcw-gmt-1.x.x.tar.bz2: Digital Chart of the World polygon data
The archives are available in bzip2 (.bz2) and gzip (.gz) formats. If you do not have bzip2 installed you can obtain source or executables from http://www.bzip.org.
For Windows users there are separate Windows installers available; this discussion only considers UNIX/Linux/OS X installations. Windows users who which to build GMT from the sources refer to README.WIN32.
If you think it is appropriate, you may consider paying us back by including our latest EOS article (Wessel, P., W. H. F. Smith, R. Scharroo, J. F. Luis, and F. Wobbe (2013), Generic Mapping Tools: Improved version released, Eos Trans. AGU, 94(45), 409-410, doi:10.1002/2013EO450001) in the reference list of your future publications that will benefit from the availability of GMT.
Install CMake (>=2.8.5) from http://www.cmake.org/cmake/resources/software.html
For all major Linux distributions there are prepackaged development binaries available. netCDF is also available on MacOSX trough the macports and fink package managers.
Otherwise, get netCDF from http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/downloads/netcdf/. You need at least version 4.0 with netCDF-4/HDF5 data model support (do not disable HDF5/ZLIB in netCDF with --disable-netcdf-4).
To handle URLs we depend on libcurl so install via your favorite package manager if it is not intrinsic to your Unix installation. Otherwise, get it from https://curl.haxx.se.
To use the GDAL interface (ability to provide grids or images to be imported via gdal) you must have the GDAL library and include files installed. Like netCDF, GDAL is available through your favorite package manager on many *NIX systems.
To use the PCRE interface (ability to specify regular expressions in some search options, e.g., gmtconvert) you must have the PCRE library and include files installed. PCRE is available through your favorite package manager on many *NIX systems.
Because GDAL already links with PCRE1 it is most practical to use that version. But if you insist, GMT can also be compiled with PCRE2.
To greatly speed up some linear algebra calculations (greenspline in particular) you must have the LAPACK library and include files installed. LAPACK is available through your favorite package manager on many NIX systems or in the case of OS X is built in. Normally this also installs BLAS but if not you need to do that separately as we are using some cblas_ functions to do linear algebra calculations.
You can obtain GMT from http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/. Alternatively you may get GMT from any of the following FTP sites. Try the site that is closest to you to minimize transmission times:
| Site | FTP address |
|---|---|
| SOEST, U. of Hawaii | ftp.soest.hawaii.edu |
| Lab for Satellite Altimetry, NOAA | ibis.grdl.noaa.gov |
| IRIS, Washington, US | ftp.iris.washington.edu |
| IAG-USP, U. of Sao Paulo, BRAZIL | ftp.iag.usp.br |
| ISV, Hokkaido U, Sapporo, JAPAN | ftp.eos.hokudai.ac.jp |
| GDS, Vienna U. of Technology, AUSTRIA | gd.tuwien.ac.at |
| TENET, Tertiary Education & Research Networks, SOUTH AFRICA | gmt.mirror.ac.za |
The development sources are available from the subversion repository at svn://gmtserver.soest.hawaii.edu/gmt/trunk
Extract the files and put them in a separate directory (need not be where you eventually want to install GMT).
GMT can be build on any platform supported by CMake. CMake is a cross-platform, open-source system for managing the build process. Refer to README.CMake for further details. In the source tree copy cmake/ConfigUserTemplate.cmake to cmake/ConfigUser.cmake and edit the file according to your demands.
By default, GMT will use Dave Watson's Delaunay triangulation routine. However, a much faster alternative is available from Jonathan Shewchuk, but his routine is not distributed under the GNU Public License. If you work for a for-profit organization you should read Shewchuk's copyright statement (in src/triangle.c) first. If you agree with the license terms you can enable Shewchuk's triangulation routine in cmake/ConfigUser.cmake.
At run-time, GMT will initialize all default variables. You can change this by adding a gmt.conf file in your current or home directory and edit those settings since GMT will check for that file before loading system defaults (actually, it will first look in the current directory, then the home directory, and then finally in share). See the gmt.conf man page for a description of all defaults.
To prevent two GMT processes writing to the same gmt.conf file simultaneously (thereby corrupting it), GMT can implement the POSIX advisory file locking scheme and sets and releases locks on these files. This might not be reliable when the files reside in directories on network filesystems, such as NFS. Whether flock works on network filesystems is implementation dependent. If you want to activate file locking you may enable it in cmake/ConfigUser.cmake.
By default, both GMT and all its supplements are built. You can turn off all supplements via the BUILD_SUPPLEMENTS setting in ConfigUsers.cmake
The top-level installation directory is configured with the variable CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX.
Now that you made your configuration choices it is time for invoking CMake. Create a subdirectory where the build files will be generated, e.g., in the source tree 'mkdir build'.
In the build subdirectory, type
cmake [options] ..
Append any of the options explained above as you see fit. If CMake cannot figure out all the dependent libraries or required compiler and linker flags it will give you a message and you will be asked to edit cmake/ConfigUser.cmake.
In the build directory, type
make
which will compile all the programs. After a successful compilation you may install the executables in the designated bin directory with the command
make install
After a successful install you can have the object files and the local executables removed by saying
make clean
or just remove the entire build directory.
The documentation is available online at http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/ or as platform independent package that you can install along with GMT.
The GMT documentation includes HTML files for online browsing, user guide, cookbook, and manual pages. The Documentation also contains the GMT_Tutorial.pdf file which is a short course in how to use GMT. It can be ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ still missing! followed individually or in a lab setting by a group of users.
The development sources from subversion do not contain the precompiled documentation. The manuals, HTML pages, and PDFs have to be created from source with Sphinx (see README.CMake).
Make sure users set their PATH to include the directory containing the GMT executables (BINDIR) if this is not a standard directory like /usr/local/bin. You should now be able to run GMT programs.
GMT users elsewhere have developed programs that utilize the GMT libraries and produce PostScript code compatible with the rest of GMT or simply perform data manipulation. In addition, misc. code developed by us depend on GMT libraries. Currently, the supplemental archive include the directories:
gshhg - Data extractor for GSHHG shoreline polygons and rivers, borders. img - Data extractor for Smith/Sandwell altimetry grids. meca - Plotting of focal mechanisms, velocity arrows, and error ellipses on maps. mgd77 - Programs for handling of native MGD77 files. misc - dimfilter potential - geopotential manipulations segyprogs - Plotting SEGY seismic data sets. spotter - Plate tectonic & kinematics applications. x2sys - Track intersection (crossover) tools.
Before running programs, there are a few things you should do/know:
- Read carefully the documentation for the gmt system. This can be found as both PDF and HTML files in the doc/pdf|html directories. The successful operation of gmt-programs depends directly on your understanding of how gmt "works", its option lists, I/O, and composite plot mechanisms. Then, before running individual gmt programs, read the associated man page.
You haven't bought anything so you cannot expect full service. However, if you find a bug in any of the programs, please report it to us (http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/) rather than trying to fix it yourself so that we, and through us, other users may benefit from your find. Make sure you provide us with enough information so that we can recreate the problem.
In addition to the bug tracking feature (New Issues) on the website, you can also post general questions on the GMT user forum. Note that registration is required to post on the site.
Should you or someone you know without net-access need to obtain GMT: Geoware makes and distributes CD/DVD-Rs with the GMT package and many useful data sets. For more details and a full description of the data sets (up to 60 Gb of data!) visit http://www.geoware-online.com/.
Good luck!
The GMT Team.