[vtk-developers] VTK Modularization

[Marcus D. Hanwell]

On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 2:10 PM, Bill Lorensen <bill.lorensen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> Just a heads-up on some things to expect when VTK is modularized.
>
> ITKv4 has a modularization effort led by Kitware. As part of this, the
> ITK code layout will change accordingly. The work is described here:
> http://www.vtk.org/Wiki/ITK_Release_4/Modularization
>
> For ITK, we will go from about a dozen code directories to over 80
> directories. This will result in over 40 libraries.
>
> For the most part, applications are agnostic regarding source tree
> layout. The include directories are handled by cmake. However, the
> library specification in CMakeLists.txt can  cause issues.
>
> The good news, for ITK, is that we have always had a cmake variable
> called ITK_LIBRARIES. This  meant to be used by applications in
> target_link_libraries rather than listing specific libraries.
> The bad news, for ITK, is that hardly anyone ever used ITK_LIBRARIES.
> The good news is that current ITK applications can start using
> ITK_LIBRARIES within their ITK3 applications and avoid work when the
> move to the modularized ITK4.
>
> VTK does not have a VTK_LIBRARIES at least as far as I know.
>
We are not following the ITK modularization, but will be sharing code
etc where appropriate. Quite a few projects I use (such as Boost and
Qt) also use the PROJECTNAME_LIBRARIES variable approach, and I think
this would be a great pattern to add to VTK too. It should make
handling more libraries in VTK simpler for application developers too.

Marcus