Building these filter/example requires knowledge of the hdf5 and the compression library installation. For autotools configure, you must supply these using --with-hdf5 and --with-{filter}lib. Example for blosc (in the build folder): ../configure --with-hdf5=/temp/hdf5 --with-blosclib=/temp/blosc For CMake, you must supply the location of the cmake configuration files in environment variables. In addition, CMake options "BUILD_EXAMPLES" and "BUILD_TESTING" must be set "ON" in order to build the example and run the tests. Example for blosc: set(ENV{HDF5_DIR} "/temp/hdf5/share/cmake/hdf5") set(ENV{BLOSC_DIR} "/temp/blosc/share/cmake/blosc") set(ENV{LD_LIBRARY_PATH} "/temp/blosc/lib:/temp/hdf5/lib") set(ADD_BUILD_OPTIONS "-DENABLE_BLOSC:BOOL=ON -DBUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON -DBUILD_TESTING:BOOL=ON") For non-cmake built hdf5 or blosc, use the location of the include/lib folders: set(ENV{HDF5_ROOT} "/temp/hdf5") set(ENV{BLOSC_ROOT} "/temp/blosc")