[vtkusers] desire to save vtk interactive gui 'states' - for later exact same replay

[David Doria]

On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 4:37 PM, greg aiken <gregaiken at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I have a need to interactively scroll through a 3d surface (similar to a
> digital elevation map) - where camera is 'looking downward', where the
> camera is orthogonal to the plane surface, and where a color map is assigned
> to the 'elevation' in the 3d surface.
>
> given that the vtk gui may be interactively zoomed in and out, and that
> where the camera is viewing may be changed, etc...
>
> is there any ability for me to say, 'i like this specific view of the data
> set i am now seeing - i need to save the state of this exact viewing
> situation' (eg,  something akin to taking a snapshot not of the bitmapped
> pixcelated screen - but rather of the entire state of the vtk environment at
> that point in time).
>
> my aimpoint here is to save several such 'states' in a format that would
> allow me, to at a later point in time, open this same data set in my same
> vtk application - and then be able to see the EXACT SAME vtk 'snapshot
> states' that i earlier found to be interesting.
>
> im not a doctor, but suppose such an application  might be so that a doctor
> making an assessment of a 3d medical volume set might rotate and zoom and
> choose a specific angle to view some scan at, and then wishing a colleague
> doctor to see the exact same view of scan to get a different medical opinion
> about.
>
> does anyone know if this can be done, and or provide a sample code
> implementation?
>
> perhaps someone has actually done this - and might be willing to code such a
> vtk app for me.  of course i would be willing to pay for this coding.
>
> sincerely,
>
> greg aiken

Greg,

This seems to be a lot more difficult than it should be. However, it
looks like this would do what you're looking for:

http://www.vtk.org/pipermail/vtkusers/2000-October/054185.html

If it works for you, if you would write a compilable example of doing
this and add it to the Examples Wiki, we would appreciate it!

David