Building the documentation

Prerequisites

• QMeshLab compiled with QMESHLAB_PYTHON_CONSOLE=ON (default).

• Python packages from docs/requirements.txt.

Step 1 — Generate the API source files

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja \
  -DQMESH_REQUIRE_VCPKG_DEPS=OFF \
  -DQMESH_MACOS_BUNDLE_ICON=OFF \
  -DQMESHLAB_PYTHON_CONSOLE=ON \
  -Dnanobind_DIR="$(python -m nanobind --cmake_dir)" \
  -DQMESH_PLUGIN_OBJ_RAPIDOBJ=OFF \
  -DQMESH_PLUGIN_E57=OFF \
  -DQMESH_PLUGIN_GLTF=OFF \
  -DQMESH_PLUGIN_FILTER_FUNC=OFF \
  -DQMESH_PLUGIN_FILTER_EMBREE=OFF
cmake --build build --target QMeshLab -j8
QT_QPA_PLATFORM=offscreen ./build/QMeshLab --generate-docs docs

This introspects the _qmeshlab module from within the running app, reads all filters.json files, and writes the reStructuredText and MyST Markdown sources into docs/api/.

The QMESH_REQUIRE_VCPKG_DEPS=OFF option is used here because the documentation build only needs the app binary for Python/API introspection and the CI job does not activate the vcpkg toolchain. The listed plugin options disable dependency-gated plugins that otherwise require vcpkg-provided libraries. For full local documentation with every dependency-gated plugin enabled, configure with the normal vcpkg toolchain instead.

Step 2 — Build the HTML site

pip install -r docs/requirements.txt
sphinx-build docs docs_build
# open docs_build/index.html

CI pipeline

The GitHub Action at .github/workflows/docs.yml automates both steps on every push to main and deploys the result to GitHub Pages.