[vtkusers] Animation of Datasets?

[rayg at bu.edu]

Hi, I am trying to get VTK to do rudimentary animation. I have 5 data sets,
a vector field generated over 5 discrete time periods, and I would like
to display them one after the other in an animation loop. I would also
like to be able to move and interact through the data as the animation
is playing.

Is this possible? Has anyone done this?
I have looked at the examples KeyFrame.tcl and the animated bottle example, but
these are just a static playback with no ability to move through data.

I have tried loading each dataset into its own Actor, and then using the
vtk interactor in tcl, I add one data Actor to the renderer and remove the
other Actors.

e.g.
ren1 AddActor Data1Actor
ren1 RemoveActor Data2Actor
ren1 RemoveActor Data3Actor
ren1 RemoveActor Data4Actor
ren1 RemoveActor Data5Actor
renWin Render

(ren1 is a vtkRenderer, and renWin is a vtkRenderWindow)

I do this for each Dataset, adding it and removing the others.

This works somewhat but is kludgy as I must type in the commands into
the interactor in tcl. Is there any way to automate the adding and
removing of actors over time?


Thanks
Anyhelp; would be greatly appreciated.

Ray Gasser
Boston Univerity
rayg at bu.edu