Create an Application Project - 2021.2 English

Vitis Unified Software Platform Documentation: Application Acceleration Development (UG1393)

Document ID
UG1393
Release Date
2022-03-29
Version
2021.2 English
Tip: Example designs are provided with the Vitis core development kit installation and also on the Xilinx Vitis Examples GitHub repository. For more information, see Getting Started with Examples.

After launching the Vitis IDE, you can create a new Application Project.

  1. Select File > New > Vitis Application Project, or if this is the first time the Vitis IDE has been launched, you can select Create Application Project on the Welcome screen.

    The New Application Project wizard opens displaying a Welcome page that explains the process for new users. You can disable this from being shown again by enabling Skip welcome page next time.

  2. Click Next to open the Platform page of the New Application Project wizard to specify a target platform.
    A target platform is composed of a base hardware design and the meta-data used in attaching accelerators to declared interfaces. Use the Select a platform from repository tab to choose a platform for your project. You can enter a value in the Find field to limit the choices displayed to make it easier to locate the required platform. The bottom portion displays information related to the currently selected platform, as shown in the following figure.

    Note: For platforms supported by a specific release refer to the Release Notes in the Getting Started with Vitis.

    You can also add custom defined or third-party platforms into a repository. For more information, see Managing Platforms and Repositories.

  3. In the Application Project Details page, specify the name in the Application project name field, as shown in the following figure.

    By default, the tool creates a new system project for your application project. However, you can also add your application project to an existing system project, if one exists. The system project is a top-level manager for different projects that combine to create the system view.

  4. Click Next to proceed.
    Note: If you selected Data Center accelerator card as your project platform in Step 2, the following page is not displayed and you can skip to Step 6.
  5. If you select an Embedded Acceleration target platform on the Platform page, as displayed in the Flow column, the Domain page opens next as shown in the following figure.

    Select a Domain from the list of existing domains on the platform, and Domain details are populated from your selection. The Domain defines the processor and operating used for running the host program on the target platform. You must also set the following Application Settings for the project to build correctly on the embedded platform:

    Sysroot path
    The sysroot is part of the platform where the basic system root file structure is defined. The Sysroot path lets you define a new sysroot for your application.
    Root FS
    Specify the location of the root file system.
    Kernel Image
    Specify the location of the operating system kernel.

    These option can be changed after the project is created from the System Project Settings in the Project Editor window.

  6. Click Next to open the Templates page letting you select an application acceleration template for your new project.

    Select an Empty Application (XRT Native API) to create a blank project to import XRT API source files into as described in Host Programming, and build the project from scratch. Also, use one of the provided template projects as a foundation for your new application project to help start your project, or help you learn the tool.

    Tip: Click the Vitis IDE Examples button, or the Vitis IDE Libraries button to install additional examples as discussed in Getting Started with Examples.
  7. Click Finish to close the New Application Project wizard and open the project in the IDE.
    Tip: The Vitis IDE opens in the Design perspective as described in Understanding the Vitis IDE. Review this information if you are unfamiliar with the display.

    When a new application acceleration project is created in the Vitis IDE, it includes a top-level system project, and nested within an application project for the host-code, a hardware kernels project for compiling kernel objects, and a hw_link project that is used for linking hardware kernels to the target platform and to each other. These projects are displayed in the Explorer view as shown in the following figure.