Tutorial: Building and Debugging the bitmap-plasma Project with VisualGDB

This tutorial demonstrates how to build and debug the bitmap-plasma sample provided by Android NDK.

For this tutorial, ensure that at least VisualGDB 2.0 or later version is installed with the Android Edition.

  1. Start Visual Studio. Go to File->New->Project. Choose VisualGDB->Android Project Wizard. Choose the name and location for the project as you wish.
  2. Choose the 'clone a sample from NDK' option. Note that you may need to 'Configure NDK/SDK location' if this is your first VisualGDB Android project and the project options are shown as disabled. Press 'Next' when done.
  3. Choose the bitmap-plasma sample. Press 'Next'. screenshot sample selection
  4. Choose at least SDK platform 8 for this sample. Press 'Finish' to exit the wizard. screenshot platform selection
  5. Now we have a sample project copied from Android NDK. Go to Build->Build Solution to build the project. screenshot build the project
  6. Next connect an Android device or emulator and make sure it is started. Then go to Android->Debug Android App to start debugging. screenshot debug point
  7. Once the app is successfully started the screen of the device should contain a square of moving plasma. screenshot emulator
  8. Go back to Visual Studio and open the file plasma.c. Go to line 180 and press 'f9' to set a breakpoint just inside the fill_plasma function. The breakpoint should be hit soon, as the fill_plasma function is used to draw the moving plasma. Congratulations, you are successfully debugging the bitmap-plasma sample. screenshot breakpoint hit