[vtk-developers] New module system preview

Thu Nov 8 11:46:55 EST 2018

I figured with 9.0 people have to rewrite their CMakeLists files calls to
use vtk so it was a good time to rename OpenGL2 back to OpenGL. To wait
until the next release means we would break their builds two releases in a
row which seems worse to me.

OpenGL requires 3.2 or ES3 so you could name it vtkRenderingOpenGL3.2orES3
but I would recommend against it. I doubt we will have another C++ OpenGL
backend. The first lasted over 20 years.

On Thu, Nov 8, 2018 at 11:32 AM, Jean-Christophe Fillion-Robin <
jcfr at kitware.com> wrote:

> Hi Ben,
>
> Thanks for the update. This look very promising.
>
> Also glad to see the "UseVTK.cmake" disappear, the use of directory
> properties to handle VTK_DEFINITIONS has been the source of a lot of
> trouble.
>
>
> Will the new system support the following:
> * Creating a VTK SDK installed in a read-only location and support
> building multiple interdependent VTK external modules against it ?
> * Building any VTK module either externally or along with the VTK project
> ?  (e.g this will be useful for creating python wheels)
> * Re-using the VTK python wrapping facility without having to buy in the
> VTK internal build system.
>
> These are the limitations of the current infrastructure that I would also
> like to see addressed by such a drastic change.
>
>
> > build against VTK
>
> Will the way to use find_package(VTK ...) and to specify required module
> change ?
>
> I also think updating VTK example to work with the new build system would
> be a good test case, this will provide an path forward for project that
> need to support both.
>
>
> > `vtk.module` / `vtk.kit`  files
>
> While this is an implementation details, would it be more sensible to
> standardize on friendly for human, readable by machine and declarative by
> nature format ? E.g json, toml, ..
> Or may be something like the "Common Package Specification" (see
> https://mwoehlke.github.io/cps/) ?
>
>
>
> > rename OpenGL2 back to OpenGL as was the original intent?
>
> I would prefer we do NOT to that for the next release, it's gonna make
> work of user of VTK even more difficult. We are still working our way to
> handle the switch of VTK major version from 9 to 8 ...
>
> Also in the future, I anticipate we will have new version of backend.
> Should the module be named after the minimum version of OpenGL it support
> ?  (e.g OpenGL3.2)
> Or since one backend can be built at a time, should alias target be
> created instead ?
>
>
>
> Thanks
> Jc
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 2:16 PM David E DeMarle <dave.demarle at kitware.com>
> wrote:
>
>> +1 for rename
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 2:09 PM Ken Martin <ken.martin at kitware.com> wrote:
>>
>>> So.... if we are significantly changing the modules shoudl we also take
>>> the time to rename OpenGL2 back to OpenGL as was the original intent?
>>>
>>> On Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 5:42 PM, Ben Boeckel <ben.boeckel at kitware.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 22:31:38 +0100, Elvis Stansvik wrote:
>>>> > Let me just jump in and say that while it sounds neat to embed it
>>>> > comments, it might make it slightly harder to make an updated version
>>>> > of Utilities/Maintenance/WhatModulesVTK.py script (which I love!).
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for the reminder that this file needs updated.
>>>>
>>>> CMake supports long-form comments now, so I'd think it'd be in blocks
>>>> like this:
>>>>
>>>> ```cmake
>>>> #[==[vtk.kit
>>>> ...
>>>> #]==]
>>>> #[==[vtk.module
>>>> ...
>>>> #]==]
>>>> ```
>>>>
>>>> with a limit of one `vtk.module` per file. Easy to slice out with a
>>>> simple `sed` call. Not so easy in CMake, but also not ridiculous.
>>>>
>>>> This is similar to the way the new module system is documented:
>>>>
>>>> ```cmake
>>>> #[==[.md
>>>> ...
>>>> #]==]
>>>> ```
>>>>
>>>> which will make it possible to extract out these blocks and feed them to
>>>> Doxygen and get the module system API docs on the web with the rest of
>>>> VTK.
>>>>
>>>> There's also `#[==[.md INTERNAL` for internal function documentation as
>>>> well.
>>>>
>>>> --Ben
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Ken Martin PhD
>>> Distinguished Engineer
>>> Kitware Inc.
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-- 
Ken Martin PhD
Distinguished Engineer
Kitware Inc.
101 East Weaver Street
Carrboro, North Carolina
27510 USA

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