[vtkusers] MingW compilation and Python

[Daniel Barbeau]

Hello,

I'm a new user of VTK, and I needed to build it with python bindings. 
The compilation went ok, however there are a few things that should be 
taking in consideration to make the 5.0.3 source code work with python 
(2.5.1). Here are my notes, maybe you're already aware of these issues, 
but anyway, better twice than never no?

When compiling with Mingw (using CMake to generate the makefiles), the 
dll files get the "lib" prefix added to their names. This makes it 
impossible for python to initialise the modules. In fact, it searches 
for the initlibvtkCommonPython() function in the libs, and obviously, it 
won't find it. Only initvtkCommonPython() exists.

Furthermore, python 2.5.1 doesn't search for modules as *.dll files 
anymore but as *.pyd files.

Finally, not all files are copied to the installation directory with 
"mingw32-make install". The missing files are the dlls ending by Python.dll.

What needs to be done is: rename all the dlls named "lib.*Python.dll" to 
".*Python.pyd" and then copy them to the installation directory.

After these steps, the "import vtk" command works!

I hope this is useful,
cheers!
Daniel