VisualSFM install mac issue

Installing VisualSFM on mac with the Dan Monaghan installer and halfway through the build I get an error that reads:

libsiftgpu.so failed to build. Halting.

What caused this and how do I fix it?

Googling found many with similar issues, was able to combine pieces from different solutions and get it working.

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Why the error occurs:

The program tries to build & install a siftgpu function on line 246 of the vsfm_os_x_installer.sh file.
But that link is dead.

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Step 1:

Manually insert a sift_gpu.zip file into your /users/USERNAME/ directory.

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Step 2:

After the sift_gpu.zip file is in your users/USERNAME directory, Ninorian changed the following lines (in the vsfm_os_x_installer.sh file) and it worked for me too:

Search for : sed -i ''
Replace with: sed -i

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Step 3:

The sift_gpu.zip file opens a directory called SiftGPU-master, and we need to change the name to SiftGPU, so add this line above line 262 like this:

(line 261) mv SiftGPU-master SiftGPU
(line 262) cd SiftGPU

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Step 4:

I got this far, but kept getting errors that said “file or directory not found”, and this was remedied by changing the file extension on line 356 in the vsfm_os_x_installer.sh file* (hat-tip to this Github build issue support ticket)

From this:

cp ../patches/SparseBundleCPU.patch src/pba/

To this:

cp -R /users/USERNAME/downloads/VisualSFM_OS_X_Installer-master/patches/SparseBundleCPU.patch src/pba

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After that, everything finished installing smoothly,
But I couldn't run it yet.

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Step 5:

This 5-minute VisualSFM Mac install YouTube tutorial helped.
Here are the steps:

• You need to add 2 scripts to your ~/.bash_profile, go into terminal and type: nano ~/.bash_profile and then paste those two scripts at the bottom of that file.
• Save and close ~/.bash_profile
• Then go into the /users/USERNAME/vsfm/bin folder and copy libpa.so AND libsiftgpu.so and paste them into your /users/USERNAME/ directory.
• Create a new folder in /users/vsfm directory called /users/vsfm/sift
• Move the SiftGPU folder from your users/USERNAME/ directory into your /users/vsfm/sift directory

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From there, go to users/USERNAME/vsfm/bin/ and double-click on VisualSFM, and if all went well the program should start running and open up, ready for use.

This was a pain in the ass to troubleshoot but it's over and done and I hope this helps anybody.