[vtkusers] Debugging vtkdll from Borland C++ Builder

[David Pont]

Dear Arvind,
  There is no "shrink wrap" "ready to run" distribution for Borland. Just 
remember what an incredibly good purchase price vtk has!. The quickest way 
might be to get the Core download and use Borlands IMPLIB to make a LIB file 
so you can link to the DLL. But you need to link vtk to a GUI window created 
by Borland, and this is a bit trickier.

I did it by building a DLL from the source, as I want to work on the vtk 
source, and debug into it. So to take this approach, here is roughly what I 
did.

You need to download the vtk source distribution for Windows, there is a 
link from the VTK Home Page:

http://www.kitware.com/vtkhtml/vtkdata/HowToGetSoftware.html

It is a while since I did this but I think you need to download:


     vtk312Win32Src.zip


(I think vtk312Core.EXE is redundant, as you will build a DLL from the 
source?, I cant remember exactly.)
Follow the instructions to unzip the source distribution, and run PCMaker. 
You must tell it where the Borland compiler is etc. This creates two 
makefiles (one for Debugging). Make sure the Borland "bin" directory is on 
your path. Run the appropriate makefile from the command line with the 
Borland "make". This will create a DLL and a LIB (this takes some time!). 
Copy the DLL to /Windows/System. Now you can include the LIB file in your 
project, and tell Borland where the include directories for vtk are, Eg: 
/vtk/common;/vtk/contrib etc. This is basically it.

The tricky part is getting a window for vtk to render into, which handles 
mouse and keyboard events. John Biddiscombe (the vtk/C++ Builder guru) has 
done this and I use some code I got from him. I can send it to you if you 
like. It is a Panel Component that integrates vtk with C++ Builder very 
nicely.

So very briefly that is it, I may have left out some steps, but if you know 
a bit about compilers in general, and C++ Builder it really is quite 
straight foward.

  regards
    Dave Pont


>From: Arvind Lakshmikumar <kla at rm.ece.ohiou.edu>
>To: David Pont <david_pont at hotmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [vtkusers] Debugging vtkdll from Borland C++ Builder
>Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 06:25:56 -0400 (EDT)
>
>Hello David,
>   I was wondering if you know of a place from where I could get VTk for
>Borland C++ builder....
>
>Thanks
>Arvind
>
>--
>//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
>     					Linux is like a Teepee,
>     					No Windows, No Gates,
>     					Only Apache inside.
>
>
>Arvind Lakshmikumar
>Laboratory for Intelligent,Real-Time and Secure Systems
>Ohio University
>Athens, OH 45701
>Ph(Work): (740)593 0453
>   (Home): (740)592 5940
>Email: kla at rm.ece.ohiou.edu
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