[vtkusers] VTK & Python on MacOS X: Local vs. system installation]

[Tom Bridgman]

Thanks to some feedback and a header file update from Yves, I finally
got VTK to build under OS X 10.2.6 with the python wrappers.

However, when running the wrappers in the source directory, say VTK/, I 
can get the python demos to run with commands like:

 >./bin/vtkpython Examples/Rendering/Python/Medical3.py

The dataset works beautifully, with 'vtkX - Carbon #1' in the title bar.

I can do a
 > sudo make install
to make the package available system-wide, then generating the python 
wrappers with
 > sudo python setup.py install
in the Wrapping/Python directory.

It even seems to import vtk from regular python.

Now when I launch the same demo using the system-wide executable, the 
window doesn't come to the forefront and is downright unresponsive.  
When I tried to install and use MayaVi, I'd get segfaults.

Deleting the vtk components in /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/lib 
resolves the problem.  I also noticed that if I moved the source 
directory, vtkpython still seemed to want dylib files in the source 
directory.

I suspect this is a path problem, but which paths?  Alternatively,
should I have built the python wrappers *before* doing 'make install'? 
This step isn't so clear in the README.html.  I'm *so close* to getting
MayaVi running on this system!

Thanks,
Tom