[vtkusers] Problem building VTK 4.0 under Debian Linux

[Brian White]

Hello all,

I am running:

Pentium 4 with Debian Linux Stable(Woody)
Python 2.1

I have been using the Python wrappers for VTK for about a year now.  The 
lobraries came from some precompiled binaries I found on the web.  Using 
these precompiled files and the code I have written in the past seems to 
run fine.  I went with precompiled to save time at the beginning but it 
would be nice to be able to build for other platforms, get updates, 
etc...  Anyway, once I got all of the pieces together (cmake, python 
includes, etc) it builds without any errors being reported.  Once I set 
up my PYTHONPATH I am able to load the vtkpython module and everything 
seems to be there.  The problem is it seg faults early on in my code. 
Here is the code I'm trying to run:

from vtkpython import *

r = vtkPolyDataReader()
r.SetFileName('/usr/local/VTKData/Data/bore.vtk')
r.Update()

d = r.GetOutput()
c = d.GetCellData()

Right when the GetCellData function is called is when it seg faults.  I 
also tried teh GetPointData call just to see what happens and I saw the 
same behavior.  I tried the same thing in C++ and everything seemed to 
work fine.  At least, it didn't seg fault at that call.

Does anyone have any idea what's going on?  As long as I don't try to 
mess with the CellData I can display the data.

Thanks in advance for any info that you have.  I will of course report 
back to the list if I find anything out.

Brian White
Software Engineer
Altarum Institute