[vtkusers] Newbie: Installing vtk 4.0 on Darwin(Quartz)

[Yves Starreveld]

Jan,

You are quite correct, a FAQ is needed. As is a binary distribution.

I have a new RenderWindow and RenderWindowInteractor that allow VTK to 
work using Tk, and allow textmapping, but can not commit them currently, 
since write access to CVS is not available.

(i.e. VTK on OSX will soon be getting a big upgrade)

Here, however, is a copy of a message I posted to this list 8 days ago:

> OSX installation of vtk:
>
> 1) You need the latest cvs versions of CMake, VTK.
> 2) You need tcl/tk (if you want tcl/tk) - there is a binary release at 
> sourceforge now
> 3) You need python (if you want python) - I recommend one of the recent 
> 2.2 releases.
> 4) Your expectations need to be tempered somewhat - 
> RenderWindowInteractor only works from C++ and Python. Something goes 
> awry with .wm withdraw on the current iteration of Tk and the OSX event 
> loop does not start properly. This is likely due to Tk being Carbon 
> based, and the OSX version of VTK being Cocoa based. I will write 
> Carbon based VTK classes in the near future, but contributions are 
> always welcome. This means that vtk on osx will support three event 
> managers. (X-windows, Cocoa, Carbon).
> 5) Instructions:
>
> a) In your freshly downloaded VTK directory, run cmake
> b) edit CMakeCache.txt to set
>
> //Build VTK with shared libraries.
> BUILD_SHARED_LIBS:BOOL=ON
>
> //Where can the GL library be found
> OPENGL_LIBRARY:FILEPATH=-framework OpenGL -framework Cocoa
>
> c) run cmake again, run make
>
> d) cd to VTK/bin
>
> e) run the examples there, like Mace, TimeRenderer
>
> f) back in VTK directory, re-edit CMakeCache.txt to switch on wrapping 
> for tcl
>
> g) re-run cmake
>
> h) re-edit CMakeCache.txt to set
> //What is the path where the file tcl.h can be found
> TCL_INCLUDE_PATH:PATH=/Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework/Headers
>
> //Where can one of the tcl, tcl84, tcl8.4, tcl83, tcl8.3, tcl82,
> // tcl8.2, tcl80 or tcl8.0 libraries be found
> TCL_LIBRARY:FILEPATH=-framework Tcl
>
> //Path to a program.
> TCL_TCLSH:FILEPATH=/usr/bin/tclsh
>
> //What is the path where the file tk.h can be found
> TK_INCLUDE_PATH:PATH=/Library/Frameworks/Tk.framework/Headers
>
> //Where can one of the tk, tk84, tk8.4, tk83, tk8.3, tk82, tk8.2,
> // tk80 or tk8.0 libraries be found
> TK_LIBRARY:FILEPATH=-framework Tk
>
> i) re-run cmake
> j) make
>
>
> I split things up into the binary and tcl portions, but clearly they 
> could all be done as one - it may be easier for me to debug any 
> problems you may have if we split it up this way.
>
> I have not had a lot of time of late, but this is changing now.
>
> The list of things to do for vtkOSX is now: integrate Sander's patches 
> to allow building for x-windows (without breaking the other builds), 
> add support for TextMapper (there will need to be two, one for Cocoa, 
> one for Carbon), add Carbon-based RenderWindow and 
> RenderWindowInteractor.
>
> Suggestions, comments and code always welcome.

See how this works for you, and let me know if this needs modification.

Yves