[vtk-developers] newbie presentation

[Pindarico Volo]

Hi all,

let me introduce myself.

I have developed a 3D scanning machine based on pattern projection and
binocular acquisition and I have written for it a simple GUI with wxWidgets
3.0, used to set the parameters, start the acquisition sequence and save
the point cloud as point-only PLY or XYZ. The GUI and the algorithmic
software of the scanner work both with Windows (8.1, MSVC 13) and Linux
(Ubuntu 14.04, g++ 4.8.4). I am also using some features of c++11.

Now I would like to give my GUI some more functionalities; first of all,
displaying and trimming the point cloud before saving it. After some
googling, my choice fell onto VTK, due to its rich set of features and to
the permissive license. So I downloaded the stable 6.2.0 version and had it
built with no particular problem. Totally newbie! Have mercy! :)

The problems begun with wxVTK which is not aligned with VTK 6.2.0, but at
last I had it working and I know that there is a mailing list devoted to it
(even if it doesn't look very alive :) ) so I won't bother you with wxVTK
specific questions. Anyway I have a question about one of the wxVTK
examples, I mean the vtkImagePlaneWidget example, which does not concern
wxVTK but rather the migration to VTK 6. So it is a pure VTK question.
Could somebody tell me if it is appropriate to ask it here?

I also had a problem with one of the VTK examples, and namely the PLY
reader (http://www.vtk.org/Wiki/VTK/Examples/Cxx/IO/ReadPLY). This example
built well but cannot read point-only PLY files. After some googling, I
reached this bug description: http://www.paraview.org/Bug/view.php?id=9741
containing a patch for vtkPLYReader.cxx

The bug ticket dates back to 2009 and so my first question is: is there
some good reason why it hasn't been integrated in the distribution, or it
has just been forgotten?

Anyway I tried and applied the patch, and discovered that, yes, point-only
PLY files are now accepted, but not displayed.

Trying to understand why, and comparing vtkPLYReader with
vtkSimplePointsReader, I devised some more modification to vtkPLYReader and
now I am able to display and interact with point-only clouds.

In case it could be of interest, I attach here my version of
vtkPLYReader.cxx.

Of course, being a total newbie, I cannot guarantee that my modifications
are correct and don't silently break something else.


Best regards,

Daniele Lugli aka Volo Pindarico (vpindarico at gmail dot com)
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