VisualSFM install mac issue - sift

Question

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?

Answer 1

Googling found many with similar issues, was able to combine pieces from different solutions and get it working.
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.
Step 1:
Manually insert a sift_gpu.zip file into your /users/USERNAME/ directory.
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
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
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
After that, everything finished installing smoothly,
But I couldn't run it yet.
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
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.