# where is the ninja compile result located
**URL:** https://discourse.vtk.org/t/where-is-the-ninja-compile-result-located/7699
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [January 22, 2022, 9:06am UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/where-is-the-ninja-compile-result-located/7699 "2022-01-22T09:06:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@longjiang321](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/longjiang321)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2022, 9:06am UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/where-is-the-ninja-compile-result-located/7699/1 "2022-01-22T09:06:06Z")
hi friends:
Thank you in advance!!
I am trying to compile VTK as below tool chain: Cmake3.21.1 + VS2022 + VTK 9.1 + ninja
the detail command as below:
**But though I had set the install-prefix to specify the install path, after the ninja done, the install directory is still empty, where is my compile result ??? what should I do ???**
it is so so so so so so so so so diffcullt to built VTK9.1, I just want use vtk with QT6, I had encounter too many issues, it makes me confuse and had taken me too too too too many many many time, what a badly software!!!
---
### Author:  [@ben.boeckel](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/ben.boeckel)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2022, 12:36pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/where-is-the-ninja-compile-result-located/7699/2 "2022-01-22T12:36:12Z")
`ninja` will just build the software. If you want it in the install tree, you need to do `ninja install`.
---
### Author:  [@longjiang321](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/longjiang321)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2022, 12:44pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/where-is-the-ninja-compile-result-located/7699/3 "2022-01-22T12:44:40Z")
Thank you so much!! thank you, this issue had confuse me for a long time!!!
---
### Author:  [@Paulo\_Carvalho](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/Paulo_Carvalho)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2022, 2:41pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/where-is-the-ninja-compile-result-located/7699/4 "2022-01-23T14:41:33Z")
Hello,
Believe it or not, Kitware invented CMake exactly to make our lives easier when it comes to building VTK. This meta-make does its job so good that it has been adopted in almost all modern C++ projects. VTK’s configuration indeed has a slow learning curve. Give it some time to get acquainted to.
regards,
Paulo
---
### Author:  [@longjiang321](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/longjiang321)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2022, 7:18am UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/where-is-the-ninja-compile-result-located/7699/5 "2022-01-24T07:18:07Z")
Hi guys:
Actually, I had tried to use cmake + mingw to build VTK for Qt, But it had encounter too many many many many issues, and it takes me two weeks to built, so I had to gave up this tool chains, the official recommend tool chains of VTK is VS + Ninja + cmake, and I had compiled it successfully, but msvc is not a cross-plate tool, it makes me crazy and depressed!! the ITK is not support msvc very well too!!
to prepare the develop environment almost lead me give up to learn itk + vtk!!
---
### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2022, 11:58am UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/where-is-the-ninja-compile-result-located/7699/6 "2022-01-24T11:58:35Z")
> [@longjiang321](#):
>
> but msvc is not a cross-plate tool,
VTK and ITK are both cross platform, with different build methods on each platform. How is that an issue ?
---
### Author:  [@Paulo\_Carvalho](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/Paulo_Carvalho)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2022, 3:05pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/where-is-the-ninja-compile-result-located/7699/7 "2022-01-24T15:05:57Z")
Hello,
Yes, MSVC is a Windows-only compiler. But you don’t need to worry about this. CMake is a meta-make, that is, it generates a makefile or VS solution file that will work on your platform and selected toolchain. The fact that MSVC is Windows-only is no more of a problem if you use a meta-make likc CMake, Autotools, QMake, etc.
But, if you still want to use MinGW64 (don’t use MinGW, which is a 32-bit only compiler), VTK and ITK compile just fine with it. Still, you don’t need to compile them if you don’t feel comfortable yet. I suggest you to install MSYS2, which is a POSIX-like evironment for Windows that comes with a Linux-like terminal to enter commands and a handy tool called `pacman`. `pacman` is a package manager for C/C++ libraries just like `conda`, `pip install`, `yum`, `synaptic`, etc. For example `pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain` installs MinGW64 in your MSYS2 environment. Then just use `pacman` to install all the libraries you want without building them. For example: `pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-vtk` will install a MinGW64-compiled VTK in your system.
If you still want to build all your dependencies, using Conan ([https://conan.io/](https://conan.io/)) is also a good solution. Conan is a C++ dependency manager like Java’s Maven. It’ll download, build and manage build artifacts automatically, provided there are the so-called “Conan recipes” for them. Conan recipes are Python scripts that contain instructions on how to build/acquire the dependencies, download sources, etc. You can even write a Conan recipe to build your own software. Conan facilitates a lot CI/CD especially if you need to deliver executables for multiple platforms.
I hope this helps,
Paulo