What is a Plugin?

SOFA allows to extend its feature with a plugin mechanism. A plugin is a shared library that can be loaded dynamically at run-time by SOFA. More features become available, such as new components or alternative scene loaders.

Marketplace

The Marketplace lists some SOFA plugins.

Plugin Loading

In order to use the features of a plugin, it must be loaded first. SOFA offers multiple ways to load a plugin.

Command-line Argument

The application runSofa accepts an optional argument -l,--load to specify a list of plugins to load. A plugin can be provided as a full path, or as a name. In the latter case, the plugin library will be searched in known folders for a match.

Automatic Loading

By default, the application runSofa reads the content of a configuration file to load automatically a list of plugins. This list can be edited to add the plugin you need. The file is either plugin_list.conf or plugin_list.conf.default. plugin_list.conf.default is generated automatically at compile-time and is not meant to be edited. To edit a list of plugins, plugin_list.conf must be used. If the file does not exist, it must be created based on plugin_list.conf.default.

GUI: Plugin Manager

The Qt-based GUI allows to load a plugin through a graphical user interface. Go to Edit > Plugin Manager .... You will see the list of already loaded plugins. Click on Add... to load another plugin.