[vtkusers] vtk 4.4 for win32

[Prabhu Ramachandran]

>>>>> "JH" == John Hunter <jdhunter at nitace.bsd.uchicago.edu> writes:

    JH> I need to build VTK 4.4 for win32 with several of the options
    JH> (Patented, Hybrid) turned on as well as wrappers for
    JH> python2.3.  I need to build a VTK installer that I can
    JH> distribute with my noncommercial product.  I have access to
    JH> several win32 compilers (VC6, VC7, cygwin).  My questions are

Can't resist this one:

MS OS: $100, 
MSVC Compiler: $1000(??), 
Time to get all this working: priceless.


Seriously:

    JH> * is such a thing already available either for free or for a
    JH>    price

What thing?

    JH> * which compiler of the ones above is recommended?

MSVC is expensive.  If you have friends with access to MSVC you need
to get Win32 DLL's for VTK built by them with support for Python2.3.
I am not sure if building under cygwin will work.  Particularly, how
OpenGL acceleration etc. will work out.  Worse, I am not sure its
going to be easy to get the Python VTK wrappers working perfectly
under cygwin.  Easiest route seems to be to build using MSVC (if you
have the compiler that is).  I'd like to know if this is no longer
true.  A while back David Gobbi asked a question about using the free
.net compiler.  I am not sure if that would work.

    JH> * should I expect this to be fairly easy?

Not easy.  So don't rush it.  Might end up taking a few days.  Two
major issues:

 1. Getting your build working with all options along with Python and
    all the other relevant libs (PyGTK I'd imagine) under Win32 is
    your first hurdle.

 2. Getting the self extracting installer working with VTK will take
    some work.  I recommend using Gordon McMillan's Installer (5b5
    worked great):
          http://www.mcmillan-inc.com/installer_dnld.html

    It makes life easier but will take work to get working perfectly.
    I wrote up some instructions and a bunch of scripts to do the task
    the last time I built the MayaVi installer.  If you want to save
    yourself trouble let me know and I'll mail them to you.  OTOH, it
    might be more of a distraction since most of my instructions and
    scripts are MayaVi specific.

I used inno setup to generate the .exe file.  It is very nice.  You
can get Inno Setup here:
        http://www.jrsoftware.org/isdl.php


    JH> * are there any gotchas or hints I should be aware of.

The real problem is you are now working with MSVC (or some other
compiler), VTK, Python, your-favorite-GUI-toolkit, McMillan's
installer and InnoSetup.  You need to have a pretty decent knowledge
of all of the above to get this working right.  So you are going to
need a little time.  On the brighter side, you will be the third
person on the planet *I know* who has built such a beast.  Welcome to
the club. ;-)

cheers,
prabhu