[vtk-developers] Permission to replace vtkCellLocator with an improved version

[Will Schroeder]

David, just to make sure, please elaborate on "replace vtkCellPicker with
vtkSurfacePicker". I think you mean you'll replace the guts of vtkCellPicker
with your vtkSurfacePicker functionality... is this correct?

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 12:21 PM, David Gobbi <david.gobbi at gmail.com> wrote:

> HI All,
>
> Around seven weeks ago I added a new class to VTK called
> vtkVolumePicker  (http://www.vtk.org/Wiki/VTK/Volume_Picking) that
> improved volume picking.  This class also included several
> improvements for polydata picking that I needed for my applications,
> including the ability to use a vtkCellLocator to speed up the pick.
>
> Soon after adding this class to VTK, I split off a subclass called
> vtkSurfacePicker
> (http://www.vtk.org/doc/nightly/html/classvtkSurfacePicker.html) that
> has 95% of the functionality of vtkVolumePicker, but doesn't depend on
> the VolumeRendering kit.  This vtkSurfacePicker is, essentially, an
> improved vtkCellPicker.  Compared to vtkCellPicker, here is a summary
> of the most important improvements:
>
> - the ability to add a vtkCellLocator to accelerate the picking of
> large data sets (it's rather shocking that vtkCellPicker cannot do
> this)
>
> - much faster algorithms for picking volumes and images.. the
> vtkCellPicker does a tedious search through all the cells in the
> vtkImageData, but this new picker simply intersects the view ray with
> the image data
>
> - specifying an "opacity isovalue" value for more useful volume
> picking, i.e. it doesn't pick transparent regions, instead it picks
> the visible volume surface
>
> - several methods for getting more information about what was picked,
> including IJK coords for images, volumes, and textures
>
> - it acknowledges the existence of mapper clipping planes... the
> vtkCellPicker ignores clipping planes so it will pick regions that
> have been clipped away
>
> I would like to replace the vtkCellPicker with this new
> vtkSurfacePicker class.  Since it provides a superset of vtkCellPicker
> functionality and improved performance, the change should be
> transparent to all users.  The only problem might be conflicts between
> the new methods and third-party subclasses of vtkCellPicker.
>
> Any thoughts?  Should I have sent this email to the ARB list instead?
>
>   David
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-- 
William J. Schroeder, PhD
Kitware, Inc.
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