[vtk-developers] VTK and transparency problems

[Ken Martin]

> Every so often we encounter users (on vtkusers and elsewhere) who run
> into difficulties with VTK and transparent actors.  VTK does so many
> things out-of-the-box and does them so well that they are usually
> quite surprised that something that *they* think ought to be a simple
> issue does not work correctly at all.
> 
> I am no expert but do understand that this is not a trivial thing to
> solve especially when performance is concerned.  However, this issue
> comes up very often and the requirement is not entirely unreasonable
> either.
> 
> I noticed that Clinton Stimpson had this response:
> 
>  http://public.kitware.com/pipermail/vtkusers/2005-January/077971.html
> 
> It appears from his comments that this approach works 90% (?) of the
> time.  So would it be possible to make this the default behavior as
> part of VTK?  Or is there a better way than this?  Comments?

The approach he describes would certainly improve the quality of transparent
renderings at a cost of rendering the transparent actors twice. His approach
is a very good compromise between performance and correct renderings.
Someone should add this to VTK in my opinion.

Thanks
Ken