Software Setup

Software Setup#

This section describes how to set up your AMD Vitis™ AI development environment to perform the following tasks:

  1. Offline model quantization and compilation — Use the Quark and Vitis AI Compiler Docker image.

  2. Cross-compilation of Arm application software — Use the Vitis AI SDK.

  3. Integrated system reference design — Use the Vitis AI GitHub repository for software examples, tutorials, and VEK385 platform source code. Use the repo to extract the prebuilt boot images needed for VEK385 board bring-up.

  4. Adaptive SoC development tools — Use AMD Vivado™ Design Suite 2025.2.

Follow these steps to create a reproducible, ready-to-use environment for evaluating example models and developing custom applications.

AMD Quark and Vitis AI Compiler Docker Image#

This Docker image contains the development tools required to quantize and compile your AI models. To set up your environment and start using AMD Quark and the Vitis AI offline compiler, see Docker setup.

Vitis AI SDK#

The Vitis AI SDK / sysroot provides the cross-compilation environment and libraries required to build applications for the target device.

If the sysroot is not installed, follow these steps:

  1. Download it from here: SDK for cross-compilation (vitis_ai_2ve_sdk_v6.2.sh).

  2. Complete the following steps on the host machine before you cross-compile applications for the target:

    1. Copy the SDK installer to a temporary location:

      cp vitis_ai_2ve_sdk_v6.2.sh /tmp/sdk.sh

    2. Make the installer executable:

      chmod +x /tmp/sdk.sh

    3. Clear the library path to avoid conflicts:

      unset LD_LIBRARY_PATH

    4. Install the SDK to the specified path:

      /tmp/sdk.sh -y -d <SYSROOT_PATH>

    5. Source the sysroot environment for cross-compilation:

      source <SYSROOT_PATH>/environment-setup-cortexa72-cortexa53-amd-linux

Integrated System Reference Design (Source Code and Pre-built Images)#

This section provides instructions on how to download and install the integrated system reference design and the associated software examples and tutorials.

The Vitis AI GitHub repository provides access to the software examples, tutorials, and the VEK385 platform source code.

The following TAR files contain the prebuilt boot images for VEK385 board setup that allow you to run these software examples on hardware:

Extract the package under /home on the host machine. You can extract the package to another path, but you must update commands to match your path.

The following commands show how to extract the prebuilt images and clone the Vitis AI GitHub repository:

Extract To /home#

sudo mkdir -p /home/amd/boot_images
sudo tar -xvf vitis_ai_2ve_prebuilt_boot_images_v6.2_RevB.tar -C /home/amd/boot_images --strip-components=1
sudo git clone -b release/6.2 https://github.com/amd/Vitis-AI.git /home/Vitis-AI
cd /home

Extract To A User-Owned Directory#

mkdir -p <your_preferred_path>/amd/boot_images
tar -xvf vitis_ai_2ve_prebuilt_boot_images_v6.2_RevB.tar -C <your_preferred_path>/amd/boot_images --strip-components=1
git clone -b release/6.2 https://github.com/amd/Vitis-AI.git <your_preferred_path>/Vitis-AI
cd <your_preferred_path>

Note

Verify directory ownership and permissions before extraction. Use sudo when the extraction directory belongs to root (for example, /home). For a user-owned directory, you might not need sudo.

Directory Structure#

This topic assumes that you extract vitis_ai_2ve_prebuilt_boot_images_v6.2_RevB.tar to /home/amd/boot_images. The following directory structure shows the extracted contents:

 /home/
|-- amd/
|   |-- boot_images/
|   |      |-- amd-end-user-license-agreement.pdf
|   |      |-- vitis-ai-vaiml-versal-2ve-vai-6.2-third-party-notices.pdf

AMD End User License Agreement#

Review the licensing files under /home/amd/boot_images:

  • amd-end-user-license-agreement.pdf

  • vitis-ai-vaiml-versal-2ve-vai-6.2-third-party-notices.pdf

Vivado Installation#

For instructions on installing Vivado 2025.2, see UG973.

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