Problem getting 3D Asymptote to Work on Mac

Question

I've been trying to get asymptote to work on my MacBook Pro running Yosemite. I downloaded asymptote onto the desktop and I tried to install it. I now have a "usr" folder on my desktop (is there a better way to do this? Where is it common to put an asy folder? It seems like there is very little documentation for installing asy on OS X). I created a config.asy file (inside the usr file on my desktop) and wrote inside it,

import settings;
outformat="pdf";
batchView=false;
pdfviewer="/Applications/Skim.app/Contents/MacOS/skim";
gs="gs";

I created a file test.txt with the code

import three;
currentprojection=orthographic(5,4,2,center=true);
size(5cm);
size3(3cm,5cm,8cm);
draw(unit box);

Then I ran the following in the command prompt:

laptop-17364637:usr nphirning$ asy -V test.txt
laptop-17364637:usr nphirning$ 2015-05-09 15:05:45.271 skim[16549:1853625]         
Unsupported: Unsupported Annotation Type

It works if I don't import three, but what's the problem with 3D graphics? Any help with the best way to set up asymptote would also be great.

Answer 1

[Converting the comments to an answer]

On a Mac running OSX it's really not a good idea to try to install Asymptote or any other parts of the TeX ecosystem on their own. It's much better to install the full MacTeX distribution. Just do a full install, and it will install Asymptote and every thing else it needs.

The executables will go into /usr/texbin (which is actually a link to /Library/TeX/Distributions/Programs/texbin) but the installer will create this for you automatically (if necessary), and add it to your $PATH.

The only drawback is that the full MacTeX distribution is about 2G bytes in size. (But it's worth it).

After you have completed the install, create your Asymptote file with a .asy extension in your favourite editor and compile it from the command line with the command asy.

• Use asy -h or texdoc asy for a summary of the options.
• texdoc asymptote will open the user guide.

If you use texmaker as your editor, it has a menu options for compiling Asymptote source that should "just work" once you have installed a full MacTeX system.