[vtkusers] Success rate of VTK on Mac OS X

[Chris Scharver]

At 1:13 PM +0530 05/20/2003, Amit Tikekar wrote:
>I am looking for an application that is easily portable on Mac/Windows with
>minimal changes. So I have a gut feeling that I might loose on some OS
>specific API's while coming up with a design for such a software. In the
>absence of such OS API's, does VTK provide it own routines to makeup for the
>absence ?

The answer will depend heavily on just how much GUI your application requires. If you stick to the basic OpenGL capabilities and interactors within VTK, you'll find that you can very easily move between just about any platforms. FLTK and Qt are two possible avenues if you need a more developed GUI.

I really recommend taking a look at Drew's article. Once you get some familiarity with Cocoa, it's simply amazing just how rapidly you can put together a very effective and responsive GUI.

>To put it other way, what combination of programming languages/tools is best
>suitable for the above kind of application. If tools differ on Mac & Windows
>what is the %age change required while porting.

I'm a big fan of CMake. :) I've been able to very easily modify build settings for VTK and projects and then fluidly move those changes from MacOS X to Windows without opening that horrid Visual Studio Project Settings window. So long to managing various IDE project files!

My work with VTK has almost exclusively used C++, and the only shortcoming with that approach is that applications require proper "packaging" to correctly respond to all user events.

Hope this helps,
Chris
--
Chris Scharver
Electronic Visualization Laboratory
The University of Illinois at Chicago
Ph: 312-996-3002   FAX: 312-413-7585
<http://www.evl.uic.edu/scharver/>