[vtkusers] A probably simple question about VTK smart pointers

[Hendrik Belitz]

Hello fellow vtk users,

I have a probably simple question about VTK smart pointers. I want to use a 
VTK class (externalDataPtr or Type vtkImageData* in my case ), generated by a 
VTK pipeline, in a class which doesn't inherit vtkBaseObject. To make sure 
that the vtkImageData* isn't deleted by the pipeline, I need to manually 
increase the reference count by calling

externalDataPtr->Register( NULL );

and decrease the reference count afterwards by

externalDataPtr->Delete();

I'm wondering if giving a NULL pointer to the Register() function is correct 
(I assume that I need to give a pointer to the object which references my 
imageData here, which I can't, since my class does not inherit 
vtkBaseObject), since this parameter isn't documented well in the online 
documentation. Could anybody give me clue on what this parameter is actually 
good for?

Regards
 Hendrik

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dipl.-Inform. Hendrik Belitz
Central Institute of Electronics / Zentralinstitut für Elektronik 
 Multimodal image processing workgroup / AG Multimodale Bildverarbeitung
Research Center Juelich / Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
D-52428 Jülich, Germany
Tel.: (++49)2461 61 8701 Fax: (++49)2461 61 3990
email: h.belitz at fz-juelich.de
ggp-key available via http://pgpkeys.pca.dfn.de
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www.vtk.org/pipermail/vtkusers/attachments/20060127/d9c7b0b7/attachment.pgp>