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

Sebastien BARRE sebastien.barre at kitware.com
Wed Dec 19 11:56:45 EST 2001


At 12/19/2001 11:10 AM, Michael Halle wrote:

>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?

It's not hard, and it's indeed very easy, the approach is the same for both 
Unix and Windows.
As reported to the users list:

=> Today, I will create a full-fledged example (and post it to the CVS) on 
how to build a local directory with your own classes, using whatever VTK 
build dir, and without modifying any of the VTK files.

I hope it will help some of you who are facing this problem.

>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.

Definitely. The example I'll post do not modify any of the VTK files. You 
can share a single VTK copy.

>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's way more easier. To achieve the same thing in 3.2 I had to write a set 
of Perl script basically emulating pcmaker. It was becoming harder to 
maintain, so I looked for a new build tool, trying several of them (tmake, 
and so on). Later on Bill started to post about CMake, and I joined in. It 
was quite easy to switch to VTK 4.0 + Cmake and I was definitely happy to 
get rid of these nasty Perl scripts.

>  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.

Definitely.
The example I will post does not need that.


--
Sebastien Barre




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