[vtk-developers] VES-Kiwi

Fri Oct 24 11:14:18 EDT 2014

Some history is useful here. Back when VES started VTK rendering was based
on the old fixed pipeline which does not work with OpenGL ES. To render on
Android/iOS they needed to implement a rendering engine built on OpenGL ES.
Due to cost and time constraints they felt they did not have time to put
that codebase into VTK proper. Now we have the time and funding to work on
that. It is a work in progress and still at an early stage but VTK master
includes alpha support for compiling and rendering on Android and iOS. More
specifically:

-          VTK now includes toolchain files and a number of fixes so that
it can build on android and iOS

-          There are now Android and iOS example programs in the Examples
Directory in VTK, for the brave that is the place to start and there are
readme files

-          Very basic multitouch support has been added for android, iOS,
and Windows systems (OpenGL2 backend)

-          A rework of the rendering system to fit with OpenGl 2.1 which
gets us close to OpenGL ES 2.0 along with some nice performance
improvements.

-          An implementation of a shader based volume renderer we think
could work with OpenGL ES 3.0

-          More fixes needed to deal with OpenGL ES 2.0.

-          A testing dashboard to make sure it builds on iOS

There is a ***lot*** still to be done including

-          migrating some of the useful bits of code from VES to somewhere
in VTK

-          setting up android dashboards

-          setting up dashboard tests to verify the built code runs and
renders

-          converting some additional old OpenGL code to 2.1/ES standards

-          Creating more examples for both platforms

-          lots more testing

-          better build support for iOS, it is a bit clunky/limited

-          bunch of stuff I’m forgetting

So right now we are in the awkward time where we are moving to having most
the VES functionality in VTK, but it is not really ready for prime time
yet.  I believe maintenance of VES/Kiwi is limited but happening.

Hope that helps some!

Thanks

Ken

Ken Martin PhD

Chairman & CFO

Kitware Inc.

28 Corporate Drive

Clifton Park NY 12065

ken.martin at kitware.com

518 881-4901 (w)

518 371-4573 (f)

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*From:* vtk-developers [mailto:vtk-developers-bounces at vtk.org] *On Behalf
Of *Cameron Lowell Palmer
*Sent:* Friday, October 24, 2014 2:35 AM
*To:* Aashish Chaudhary
*Cc:* vtk-developers at vtk.org
*Subject:* Re: [vtk-developers] VES-Kiwi

I understand the pain that is documentation, but even the links to the
mailing list are broken. For example http://www.vtk.org/Wiki/VES the link
at the bottom doesn’t take you where it says it will.

Impressive improvements in the article you shared. Those speed-ups are
truly awesome.

Now let’s talk about me. Our university has built up a non-trivial amount
of code around VES-Kiwi. What I’m trying to do is get to a place where I
can debug and ultimately extend the codebase. Basically the work is
increasingly Android-only, but I would prefer a first-class C++ debugging
environment something the current Android tools don’t really have yet. That
was why I was trying to get plain ol’ VES to compile in iOS. Should I take
this to mean that the VES codebase has been deprecated in favor of future
development within VTK?

Thanks,

Cameron.

On 23. okt. 2014, at 22.19, Aashish Chaudhary <aashish.chaudhary at kitware.com>
wrote:

Hi Cameron,

The reason we didn't update those documentation because we are working
towards getting VES and some Kiwi functionality in proper VTK in one way or
another. Probably others will provide more information on this matter, but
here is a to follow up on the recent development in that direction:

http://www.kitware.com/source/home/post/144

We will also have an upcoming article on Volume Rendering that should  work
on mobile devices as well (not tested).

*As far as the build goes, there are newer ways to build an Android project
but I personally have not tested that with CMake. There is a project inside
VTK master with OpenGL2 backend that you can try now.*

*Please don't consider this as an official reply on this matter* but I hope
that this provides some useful information.

- Aashish

On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 4:02 PM, Cameron Lowell Palmer <
cameron.palmer at ntnu.no> wrote:

Hi, I’m interested in building VTK-VES-Kiwi stack on just about any
platform although I prefer Mac, or Windows. It seems that the instructions
provided absolutely don’t work or are not consistently documented.

So is Linux-Eclipse-Android really the only viable option? What is the
state of development on the project?
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*| Aashish Chaudhary | Technical Leader         | Kitware Inc.            *

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