[vtkusers] os x: render window miseries

[Karl Garsha]

Greetings,
I've written a small, simple Python/VTK script to read in a volume from 
a series of *.tiff files, throw up a conventional vtkRenderWindow, and 
permit interaction via the conventional vtkRenderWindowInteractor.  
Nothing fancy here; on Windows it works swimmingly.
    On OS X things go afoul.  No errors, but the vktRenderWindow is just 
black.  When I drag the renwin, the cpu usage get's pegged and it takes 
about 2-3 seconds for the window to move to the new position.  If I 
don't use a vtkRenderWindowInteractor, the renwin shows up for a split 
second and then dissappears. I'm using vtkVolumeMapperMIPfunction, but I 
get the same behavior with the composite ray tracing function.
    When I try a simple read a 2D image and display w/ vtkImageViewer, 
the veiwer frame shows up for a split second with nothing in it and then 
dissappears.
    I've been wrestling with VTK on OS X since OS X 10.1, so I'm aware 
of many of the little odds and ends that one has to watch out for, but 
this is a new one to me.  I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced 
these behaviors, I see from the archives that there was another similar 
report from someone using VTK w/ TCL in January.
    It has been a while since I've updated things, I'm running OS X 
10.3.8, with Python 2.3.3, wxWindows2.5.2.7 (just for a file selection 
gui and text output) and VTK 4.4.  I'm downloading the nightly update 
presently.
    Am I missing something?  I realize it is hard to know what the 
problem is when no errors are being returned, hopefully someone out 
there has some insight into this issue.  I'm going to try to 
update/rebuild everything, mabye wxWindows2.5.2.7 is somehow giving me 
grief. 
    Thanks.
Best,
Karl

-- 
Karl Garsha
Light Microscopy Specialist
Imaging Technology Group
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
405 North Mathews Avenue
Urbana, IL 61801
Office: B650J
Phone: 217.244.6292
Mobile: 217.390.1874
www.itg.uiuc.edu