Note that by default this builds a shared library into the `bin` directory. If you want to build it as a static library see the build options at the bottom of this file.
First, you have to install Visual-Studio on your windows-system. You can get the Community-Version for free [here](https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/)
This will generate the project files for the visual studio. All dependencies used to build Asset-Importer-Lib shall be part of the repo. If you want to use you own zlib installation this is possible as well. Check the options for it.
required to compile some of assimp's files, especially for debug builds.
Version 7.3.0 of g++-mingw-w64 & gcc-mingw-w64 appears to work.
Please see [CMake Cross Compiling](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/manual/cmake-toolchains.7.html#cross-compiling) for general information on CMake Toolchains.
Some users have had success building assimp using MinGW on Linux using [polly](https://github.com/ruslo/polly/).
The following toolchain, which is not maintained by assimp, seems to work on Linux: [linux-mingw-w64-gnuxx11.cmake](https://github.com/ruslo/polly/blob/master/linux-mingw-w64-gnuxx11.cmake)
The following toolchain may or may not be helpful for building assimp using MinGW on Windows (untested):
- **ASSIMP_BUILD_ALL_IMPORTERS_BY_DEFAULT (default ON)**: Build Assimp with (most) importers enabled. Currently, USD importer is not included. See ASSIMP_BUILD_USD_IMPORTER.
You can download and install assimp using the [vcpkg](https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg/) dependency manager:
```bash
git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
cd vcpkg
./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh
./vcpkg integrate install
./vcpkg install assimp
```
The assimp port in vcpkg is kept up to date by Microsoft team members and community contributors. If the version is out of date, please [create an issue or pull request](https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg) on the vcpkg repository.