[vtkusers] VTK startup problems

[Bertwim van Beest]

Dear vtk-users.

Please help me out in getting started with vtk!

In order to discover the vtk, I downloaded the VTK and VTKData modules,
using the CVS checkout. 
To install, I followed the instructions as given in VTK/README.html.
Prior to that, I installed CMake.
Everything went fine so far. I do have a few questions though. In
addition, and related, I encountered a few problems when I want to run
some test examples.

1) According to the README, just typing 'make' should be enough for
installation. 
   However, when I try to compile the example
VTK/Examples/Tutorial/Step1/Cxx/Cone.cxx, some include files are not
found: 

==
mozart:/usr/local/cvs/VTK/Examples/Tutorial/Step1/Cxx # make
cmake.depends is up-to-date
/usr/bin/g++  -I/usr/local/cvs/VTK/Examples/Tutorial/Step1/Cxx
-I/usr/local/include/vtk    -I/usr/X11R6/include -c
/usr/local/cvs/VTK/Examples/Tutorial/Step1/Cxx/Cone.cxx -o Cone.o
/usr/local/cvs/VTK/Examples/Tutorial/Step1/Cxx/Cone.cxx:26:
vtkConeSource.h: No such file or directory
/usr/local/cvs/VTK/Examples/Tutorial/Step1/Cxx/Cone.cxx:27:
vtkPolyDataMapper.h: No such file or directory
/usr/local/cvs/VTK/Examples/Tutorial/Step1/Cxx/Cone.cxx:28:
vtkRenderWindow.h: No such file or directory
make[1]: *** [Cone.o] Error 1
make: *** [default_target] Error 2
mozart:/usr/local/cvs/VTK/Examples/Tutorial/Step1/Cxx #
==

QUESTION: I can find the missing files, but they reside in different
directories. Am I missing an installation step here?  I tried 'make
install', but that gave lots of error messages, and didn't resolve the
problem. 

2)
when I run a .tcl-example, e.g. 'vtk
/usr/local/cvs/VTK/Examples/Modelling/Tcl/expCos.tcl' everything goes
fine: a window pops up with the 3D display visible, and I rotate, scale
etc. the 3D display. 
However, the C++ pendant, 
/usr/local/cvs/VTK/bin/expCos,
 only pops up for a short moment, after which the program terminates:

Same flashing behaviour with TestRenderWindow, Mace, BoxWidget, ...

QUESTION: Is this normal behaviour? 


3) a lot of the executables in the bin-directory do nothing, e.g. 
  vtk> otherCellBoundaries
  vtk> otherEmptyCell
  vtk> otherArrays

QUESTION: OK?

4) Where should the VTKData directory be located? For instance, 
   executing 'volProt' gives a long list of errors like:

ERROR: In /usr/local/cvs/VTK/IO/vtkDataReader.cxx, line 380
vtkStructuredPointsReader (0x805dfd8): Unable to open file:
../../../../VTKData/Data/ironProt.vtk


5) ...(!)

Thanks.

Bertwim