[vtkusers] Python compass widget example

[David Doria]

On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 8:36 AM, Anders Wallin
<anders.e.e.wallin at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It's really up to the Ubuntu package maintainers. As far as I am aware we
>> have no influence over them.
>> http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/libvtk5-dev
>> It looks like the up coming Lucid Lynx version will still have 5.2.
>
> looking in Synaptic Package Manager I find the following vtk-related packages:
> vtkdata 5.2.1-1
> vtk-examples 5.2.1
> python-vtk 5.2.1
> libvtk5.2 5.2.1
> vtk-doc 5.2.1
>
> Are there updated .deb packages for VTK 5.4.2 which would install
> easily on 64-bit Ubuntu 9.10 somewhere?
>
> Or do I need to build from source? The Readme in the source tar.gz has
> instructions for compiling, but how are the binaries and libraries
> installed in the correct place?
>
> AW

I'd recommend compiling from source. There's nothing more frustrating
then seeing that something you want has been added/fixed but you can't
get your hands on it.

All you have to do is compile it wherever you want (I keep the source
in /home/doriad/src/VTK and compile in /home/doriad/bin/VTK - the
other standard option is /home/doriad/VTK/src and
/home/doriad/VTK/bin). Then you add:

export VTK_DIR="/home/doriad/bin/VTK"
export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/home/doriad/bin/VTK/Wrapping/Python/

to you ~/.bashrc and restart your environment.

This should do the trick. Maybe I missed something - give it a try and
let us know when you run into problems.

I started a page in the tutorials section:
http://www.vtk.org/Wiki/VTK/Tutorials/PythonEnvironmentSetup

but it could certainly use a lot of prettying up. It looks like I used
the VTK that comes with Paraview for those instructions - you may want
to start another section that is "Compiling outisde Paraview" vs
"Compiling inside Paraview" or something.

Thanks,

David