Fwd: Re: vtk & MacOS

[David Gobbi]

Matthew,

I agree that adding GLUT support to VTK would be a very good 
idea, it would make a large amount of system-dependent code
unnecessary.  It is easy to get ahold of both binary and source
distributions of GLUT for just about any platform that runs 
OpenGL.

We would love to port our applications to the Mac if we could.
And GLUT support for VTK plus a thin Mac-specific layer for
threading etc. would probably be the easiest way to do it.

 - David

--David Gobbi, MSc                    dgobbi at irus.rri.on.ca
  Advanced Imaging Research Group
  Robarts Research Institute, University of Western Ontario

On Mon, 12 Jul 1999, Matthew Hall wrote:

> Lisa Sobierajski Avila wrote:
> 
> > >Problems:
> > >1) filename length - since some of the source names are >31 chars long,
> > >though the file system will now keep the files straight, the finder is
> > >still limited. You need to rename about 20 files (and associated .h
> > >files), and update all the references to them in the other files. I have
> > >a Python script which does this in about 2min.
> > >2) Display - you need to write your own subclasses to implement any
> > >interactions with the Mac's window manager.
> > >3) Python/Tk - perhaps just use C++ for now.
> > >4) Running under OSX - display issues persist, as there is no X-Server
> > >(Xnext is available, but slow), there is hardware accelerated OpenGL if
> > >you use a Voodoo2 board.
> > >5) LinuxPPC - compile and install quite straightforward, runs well. No
> > >hardware accelerated OpenGL.
> > >
> > >Suggestion: wait for OSX Client to arrive in early 2000. Write an
> > >interface to Quartz for the display issues.
> > >In the meantime, if you must run vtk on Mac hardware, use LinuxPPC.
> > >Yves
> > >
> 
> 1) *Sigh* HFS+, or Extended Format, can handle 64 char filenames, in
> 	theory. Unfortunately, that part of HFS+ hasn't been implemented :(
> 	By the way, is there a way I can get that Python Script from you?
> 2) True, someone would need to rewrite the windowing scheme, but hey,
> they
> 	did it for WIN32. (By the way, has anyone investigated using GLUT
> 	for the interface? It seems to be powerful enough, and it would 
> 	make VTK more portable)
> 3) Mac has robust Tcl/Tk support, and Python support too (though I am
> not
> 	quite sure how good that is). 
> 4) True, we can wait, but Window Manager routines will work under OSX,
> as
> 	will copybits, and most other windowing/interface routines, so
> 	if they are written now, they should work in OSX, with invisible
> 	support for Quartz (and very likely, HW OpenGL support, esp. for
> 	ATI cards)
> 5) I'm trying that now.
> 
> -Matt
> 
> 
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