[vtk-developers] VTK and GL2PS.

[Prabhu Ramachandran]

Hi,

I've been noticing that many folks want publication quality pictures
of their VTK based simulations.  gl2ps seems to be a widely used
option.  There seem to be quite a few private implementations of a
gl2ps writer for VTK.  Why isn't there a vtkGL2PS writer in VTK?  Any
specific reasons why not?  AFAIK there is only one major issue which
is the license of gl2ps.  gl2ps is distributed under the LGPL.  While
this might be a pain could it be possible to ask the author
(Christophe Geuzaine) if we can include the gl2ps sources (two files!)
inside VTK and promise that any modifications/improvements we make
will be sent back to him for possible inclusion.  This way the LGPL is
not violated in principle.  IANAL so I'm not sure if this is enough.
Whats the deal on this?  If that is not possible how about adding a
CMake option so those who have gl2ps can build the writer?

Whether we decide to add gl2ps support or not, text actors do not seem
to work when used with gl2ps.  gl2ps supports LaTeX output, so would
it not be possible to add hooks to the current vtkTextActors so that
if a SetGL2PSOn() or something like that were set, appropriate
gl2psText(...) calls will be made so that the gl2ps output can also
produce nice text?  If this would require (undesireable) dependencies
with gl2ps we could incorporate code so that just the LaTeX code is
dumped.  This is actually a very small bit of code inside gl2ps.c.
This way we should be able to generate LaTeX text for the figures.
Even if these are not rendered while viewing a visualization they will
atleast appear when in print.

These are just thoughts.  I have no idea if this would be feasible.
Comments?

cheers,
prabhu