初识CGAL
1.CGAL（Computational Geometry Algorithms Library，计算几何算法库）
设计目标是，以C++库的形式提供方便，高效，可靠的几何算法。
CGAL可用于各种需要几何计算的领域，如计算机图形学，科学可视化，计算机辅助设计和建模，地理信息系统，分子生物学，医学成像，机器人运动规划，网格生成，数值方法等等。
计算几何算法库（CGAL），提供计算几何相关的数据结构和算法，诸如三角剖分（2D约束三角剖分及二维和三维Delaunay三角剖分），Voronoi图（二维和三维的点，2D加权Voronoi图，分割Voronoi图等），多边形（布尔操作，偏置），多面体（布尔运算），曲线整理及其应用，网格生成（二维Delaunay网格生成和三维表面和体积网格生成等），几何处理（表面网格简化，细分和参数化等），凸壳算法（2D，3D和dD），搜索结构（近邻搜索，kd树等），插值，形状分析，拟合，距离等。
The goal of the Cgal Open Source Project is to provide easy access to efficient and reliable geometric algorithms in the form of a C++library.
The Computational Geometry Algorithms Library offers data structures and algorithms like triangulations, Voronoi diagrams, Boolean operations on polygons and on polyhedra, arrangements of curves, mesh generation, geometry processing, convex hull algorithms, to name just a few.
All these data structures and algorithms operate on geometric objects like points and segments, and perform geometric tests on them. These objects and predicates are regrouped in Cgal Kernels.
Finally, the Cgal Support Library offers geometric object generators and spatial sorting functions, as well as a matrix search framework and a solver for linear and quadratic programs. It further offers interfaces to third party software such as the Gui libraries Qt, Geomview, and the Boost Graph Library.
2.CGAL依赖
CMake
In order to configure, build, and install the Cgal libraries, examples and demos, you need CMake, a cross-platform ``makefile generator''. If CMake is not installed already you can obtain it from http://www.cmake.org/. CMake version 2.6.2 or higher is required. On Windows, CMake version 2.8.6 or higher is required, for a proper support of DLLs generation.
CMake是一个跨平台的安装(编译)工具,可以用简单的语句来描述所有平台的安装(编译过程)。他能够输出各种各样的makefile或者project文件,能测试编译器所支持的C++特性,类似UNIX下的automake。只是 CMake 的组态档取名为 CmakeLists.txt。Cmake 并不直接建构出最终的软件，而是产生标准的建构档（如 Unix 的 Makefile 或 Windows Visual C++ 的 projects/workspaces），然后再依一般的建构方式使用。这使得熟悉某个集成开发环境（IDE）的开发者可以用标准的方式建构他的软件，这种可以使用各平台的原生建构系统的能力是 CMake 和 SCons 等其他类似系统的区别之处。
“CMake”这个名字是“cross platform make”的缩写。虽然名字中含有“make”，但是CMake和Unix上常见的“make”系统是分开的，而且更为高阶。
Boost
The Boost libraries are a set of portable C++ source libraries. Most of Boostlibraries are header-only, but a few of them need to be compiled or installed as binaries.Cgal requires the Boost libraries. In particular the header files and the threading library (Boost.Threadbinaries. Version 1.39 (or higher) are needed.
On Windows, as auto-linking is used, you also need the binaries of Boost.Serialization and Boost.DateTime, but the dependency is artificial and used only at link-time: the CGAL libraries do not depend on the DLLs of those two libraries.
In Cgal some demos also depend on Boost.Program_options.
In case the Boost libraries are not installed on your system already, you can obtain them from http://www.boost.org/. For Windows you can download an installer from http://www.boostpro.com/download/. Since Boost.Thread is required, make sure to either install the precompiled libraries for your compiler or build libboost-thread.
As on Windows there is no canonical directory for where to find Boost, we recommend that you define the environment variable BOOST_ROOT and set it to where you have installed Boost, e.g., C:\boost\boost_1_41_0.
Boost库是一个可移植、提供源代码的C++库，作为标准库的后备，是C++标准化进程的发动机之一。 Boost库由C++标准委员会库工作组成员发起，其中有些内容有望成为下一代C++标准库内容。在C++社区中影响甚大，是不折不扣的“准”标准库。Boost由于其对跨平台的强调，对标准C++的强调，与编写平台无关。大部分boost库功能的使用只需包括相应头文件即可，少数（如正则表达式库，文件系统库等）需要链接库。但Boost中也有很多是实验性质的东西，在实际的开发中实用需要谨慎。
Qt
Qt is a cross-platform application and UI framework.Most Cgaldemos use Qt3 or Qt4. Having Qt4 version 4.3.0 or higher is recommended.
In case Qt is not yet installed on your system, you can download it from http://qt.nokia.com/.
Qt是一个1991年由奇趣科技开发的跨平台C++图形用户界面应用程序开发框架。它既可以开发GUI程式，也可用于开发非GUI程式，比如控制台工具和服务器。Qt是面向对象语言，易于扩展，并且允许组件编程。2008年，奇趣科技被诺基亚公司收购，QT也因此成为诺基亚旗下的编程语言工具。