[vtkusers] Wierd problem with VTK under Mesa.

[Ann Gentile]

> I have been running into a very wierd problem with VTK (actually with
> MESA).  I am using the VTK 4.0 CVS tree.  This machine is a laptop
> (PII), running Debian woody, Xfree86-4.1, ATI Mach64 Rage Pro, MESA
> version 3.1.  The build itself was made on a desktop and the shared
> libraries were copied to the laptop.  The desktop uses nVidia's
> accelerated GL libraries while the laptop uses MESA 3.1.  Earlier I
> tried a build on the laptop itself (with the vtk 3.2 tree) and had
> exactly the same problems.  Anyway, here is the problem.
> 
> When I load a visualization using MayaVi (which uses VTK and Tkinter)
> some of the actors suddenly disappear (the Visibility of the actor is

i have had a problem with dissapearing actors using vtk3.1+mesa+debian
in the past (and unfortunately dont recall the version numbers).
hank childs (childs3 at llnl.gov) diagnosed my problem as a problem
with how display lists were being handled in mesa, and
gave me the following work around (to end-run the display lists):

Modify vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper.cxx, in routine vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper::Render,
modify test 
if ( this->GetMTime() > this->BuildTime ||
       input->GetMTime() > this->BuildTime ||
       act->GetProperty()->GetMTime() > this->BuildTime ||
       ren->GetRenderWindow() != this->LastWindow)
to be:
if (1)


perhaps this may be related to your problem. hank has
been very helpful on these lists, so id bet he would
give you more info, if asked (right hank ? :)  ).

ag