How to build a package from source?

Question

Hi! I've recently installed the ROS indigo desktop version in my raspberry PI 2, running the last version of Raspbian (following the tutorial http://wiki.ros.org/ROSberryPi/Installing%20ROS%20Indigo%20on%20Raspberry%20Pi). I've installed all properly. Now I'm trying to install new packages from source in the ROS file system, but I don't understand exactly what I have to do to get it. The package I'm trying to install is ros3djs (http://wiki.ros.org/ros3djs). The steps I've followed are the next:

1- $ cd ~/ros_catkin_ws/src

2- $ git clone https://github.com/RobotWebTools/ros3djs.git

Once I have the package downloaded in the src folder, I don't know exactly what I should do. In the installation of ROS tutorial comes the next command to invoke catkin_make_isolated:

$ sudo ./src/catkin/bin/catkin_make_isolated --install -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release --install-space /opt/ros/indigo

but it makes all the workspace to be compiled again and it takes a lot of time, so what I should do? I want to compile only the new packages I add. Being on the ros_catkin_ws folder, I've tried the next:

3- $ catkin_make --pkg ros3djs

But I get the next message:

Packages "ros3djs" not found in the workspace

I've also tried the catkin_make_isolated:

3- $ catkin_make_isolated --pkg ros3djs

Packages not found in the workspace: ros3djs

I don't understand very well the structure ROS have to add new packages. Could someone give me any suggestion? Thank you very much!

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Originally posted by rubenvm on ROS Answers with karma: 17 on 2015-06-08

Post score: 0

Answer 1

Try this:

$ cd ~/ros_catkin_ws/src
$ git clone https://github.com/RobotWebTools/ros3djs.git
$ cd ~/ros_catkin_ws
$ catkin_make -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
$ source ~/ros_catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash

Note that I don't know anything about the package in question, but that should work.

EDIT: Just looked at the GitHub repo. The package you are trying to use is not a catkin package. See this page:

http://wiki.ros.org/ROS/Tutorials/catkin/CreatingPackage

Every catkin package needs, at minimum, a CMakeLists.txt file and a package.xml file. This repo appears to have neither.

For build instructions, see the repo's README.md file.

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Originally posted by Tom Moore with karma: 13689 on 2015-06-08

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 0

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Original comments

Comment by rubenvm on 2015-06-09:
Yes, you are right, I have installed that following the instructions given. But the main problem is that I have 188 packages aproximately within the src folder, so when I want to add a single package the catkin_make command make it to compile everything, which takes a lot of time in raspberry.Thanks

Comment by Progtologist on 2015-06-09:
You should create different workspaces depending on what you need or install the files you use (in opt for example) and overlay workspaces with your projects. Workspace Overlaying

Comment by rubenvm on 2015-06-10:
Thank you very much! It is just what I was looking for! Thank you all for your help