[vtk-developers] building modules outside the vtk 4.0 tree

Michael Halle halazar at media.mit.edu
Wed Dec 19 06:10:37 EST 2001


I'm inspired by the helpful "vtk Local in 15 steps" posting to ask
the following question:

    In vtk4.0, how hard is it (under Unix) to build a module outside of
    the main vtk source tree?

Background: Our lab currently faces the problem of a great
proliferation of compiled copies of the vtk source tree.  Every
developer has one.  Everyone builds their own Local library.  It's
a nightmare to maintain.

For vtk 3.2, we came up with a way to dynamically link in modules.
Briefly, user make a shadow tree (also known as a link) of a single
compiled vtk source tree.  They make a subdirectory in that tree.
A script runs and pulls out the required configure line from one of
the standard vtk modules (graphics, I think) so that the Makefile
can be built.  Optionally, the developers files can also be linked
in from outside the shadow tree, so the entire build environment is
essentially symbolic links to either a compiled vtk distribution or
the users source files.  Not the absolute prettiest solution to the
problem, but it works.  

The result is a set of dynamically loadable libraries: the
implementation C++ library, and the scripting wrappers.  To use the
module, the user need only load the wrapper library (for example, the
Tcl wrapper) using scripting library tools (load in Tcl).  The wrapper
is linked to pull in the C++ library.  No modification of the main vtk
tree is needed.  And that's great.

Now we face the task of doing the same thing for vtk4.0.  Can anyone
tell me if they think it will be easier or harder?  It seems that if
we encouraged this kind of loadability, hacking vtktcl.c to add Local
shouldn't be needed, since Tcl can do the load by itself.  In
addition, the ability for developers to exchange and combine
pre-compiled modules (only if they are built off the same version of
vtk with the same compiler, of course) is incredibly useful and
timesaving.

Thanks for you for impending vtk4.0wizardwords.  

Michael Halle
mhalle at media.mit.edu









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