[vtkusers] Problems with wxVTK, wxGTK and pango (fonts)

[Jens Fisseler]

Hi Richard!

> I try to use wxVTK on a Suse 9.2 Professional. I installed all necessary
> packages including wxGTK, GTK, atk, pango etc. I managed to compile the
> examples, but when I execute them I get the following error:
> 
> ** (Sample1:11499): WARNING **: Cannot open font file for font Verdana 10
> ** (Sample1:11499): WARNING **: Cannot open fallback font, nothing to do

> I googled a bit around and found that the error comes from pango (I
> searched the source of pango) when it is unable to open a freetype font. I
> checked the permissions of /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts etc where the fonts
> are missing. I tried the GDK_USE_XFT=0 flag, did a fc-cache -v -f but
> nothing works. Even compiling as root gives me the error-messages.
> 
> On my gentoo-driven Laptop wxVTK works fine. Installing gentoo is no
> solution on this machine :-)

Do you use wxwidgets with GTK+-2.0 support on your Suse-machine and
wxwidgets with GTK+-1.x support on your Gentoo-laptop?

I stumbled over this problem myself some time ago and suppose it's
caused by some changes inside the "freetype"-library. The fonts
installed on your system are not compatible with the "freetype"-library
shipped with VTK. My "solution" was to install a newer version of
"freetype" inside the VTK source tree. You have to do some changes to
the "freetype" source code, and I have a list of the necessary steps,
but only at home. So I can send you the list tomorrow, if my guess
regarding the GTK+-version used with wxwidgets was right. So let me
know.

Regards,

Jens