[vtkusers] VTK 6.1 on Mac: from JDK 6 to JDK 8, compilation notes and changes in window handling

[Alexandre Dufour]

Hi everyone,

We are using VTK via Java for 3D rendering purposes in the open-source Icy platform for bioimaging (http://icy.bioimageanalysis.org), and it has been a great experience so far (especially on Windows). Less so on Mac however, mostly due to Apple’s custom JVM implementation (1.6) messing with the lightweight/heavyweight thingy, and the dramatic changes when switching to Java 1.8 (Oracle). 

— The story starts when compiling VTK with Java bindings (after I installed Oracle’s JDK 8 on Mavericks 10.9.2, Xcode 5.1). At runtime, vtk viewers that used to work under JDK 6 suddenly cause a bad crash (note that this also happened with Oracle’s JDK 7):
	_NSJVMLoadLibrary: NSAddLibrary failed for /libjawt.dylib
	JavaVM FATAL: lookup of function JAWT_GetAWT failed. Exit

— I figured VTK probably wasn’t properly talking to JDK 8, and noticed in CMakeLists that the JAVA_XXX flags were pointing to some weird bits of Java frameworks inside Xcode (in a MacOS10.9 resource bundle), therefore I changed them to:
	JAVA_AWT_INCLUDE_PATH	/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0.jdk/Contents/Home/include                                                                                                                                                                           
	JAVA_AWT_LIBRARY			/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/libjawt.dylib                                                                                                                                                            
	JAVA_INCLUDE_PATH			/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0.jdk/Contents/Home/include                                                                                                                                                                          
	JAVA_INCLUDE_PATH2		/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0.jdk/Contents/Home/include/darwin

— This change wouldn’t compile anymore, due to the following line (appears twice in Wrapping/Java/vtkJavaAwt.h):
	temp0->SetWindowId(dsi_mac->cocoaViewRef);
(problem: the cocoaViewRef field does not exist anymore). Commenting this line however resumes compilation (but could cause the issue below).

— Once compiled, I took the sample code from this web site: http://www.particleincell.com/blog/2011/vtk-java-visualization/. Here is the outcome:

— — Under JDK 6: the vtk panel nicely sits “inside” the main frame, where it is supposed to be (expected behaviour).

— — Under JDK 8, the vtk panel opens in a new (native Mac) window entitled “Visualization Toolkit - Cocoa #1”, while the main frame sits there with all other UI components, except the center zone is empty (it is like “sucked away” into the native window:)). Additionally, the Apple toolkit at runtime is complaining with the following console warning:

2014-04-09 19:05:10.178 java[2935:790f] Cocoa AWT: Not running on AppKit thread 0 when expected. (
	0   libawt_lwawt.dylib                  0x00000001255c3887 -[AWTWindow windowDidResignKey:] + 40
	1   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff90f8ce0c __CFNOTIFICATIONCENTER_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER__ + 12
	2   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff90e80a6d _CFXNotificationPost + 2893
	3   Foundation                          0x00007fff862bb7ba -[NSNotificationCenter postNotificationName:object:userInfo:] + 68
	4   AppKit                              0x00007fff89156760 -[NSWindow resignKeyWindow] + 702
	5   AppKit                              0x00007fff8905b363 -[NSWindow _changeKeyAndMainLimitedOK:] + 768
	6   AppKit                              0x00007fff89053856 -[NSWindow _makeKeyRegardlessOfVisibility] + 100
	7   AppKit                              0x00007fff890537c0 -[NSWindow makeKeyAndOrderFront:] + 29
	8   libvtkRenderingOpenGL.jnilib        0x000000012c854d71 _ZN20vtkCocoaRenderWindow13CreateAWindowEv + 2113
	9   libvtkRenderingOpenGL.jnilib        0x000000012c855af8 _ZN20vtkCocoaRenderWindow10InitializeEv + 344
	10  libvtkRenderingOpenGL.jnilib        0x000000012c851e6d _ZN20vtkCocoaRenderWindow5StartEv + 29
	11  libvtkRenderingCore.jnilib          0x0000000129db9fad _ZN15vtkRenderWindow14DoStereoRenderEv + 29
	12  libvtkRenderingCore.jnilib          0x0000000129db9f6c _ZN15vtkRenderWindow10DoFDRenderEv + 1612
	13  libvtkRenderingCore.jnilib          0x0000000129db98fd _ZN15vtkRenderWindow10DoAARenderEv + 1837
	14  libvtkRenderingCore.jnilib          0x0000000129db8ec2 _ZN15vtkRenderWindow6RenderEv + 2418
	15  libvtkRenderingCoreJava.jnilib      0x0000000129b2f291 Java_vtk_vtkRenderWindow_Render_19 + 49
	16  ???                                 0x000000010ec0a66e 0x0 + 4542473838
	17  ???                                 0x000000010ebfd2e0 0x0 + 4542419680


In both cases, the viewers behave identically.

I apologise for the long post, but I assume this is sufficiently complete to describe and reproduce the problem.
Has anyone experienced this lately? Any hints on why the behaviour is different? I could not find any similar issue on the forum…

Many thanks for your attention, and looking forward to updates on the Mac port!

Best wishes
Alexandre

---
Alexandre Dufour, Ph.D.
Institut Pasteur - Bio Image Analysis Group
25, rue du Docteur Roux, Paris, France
Research: http://www.bioimageanalysis.org/dufour
Software: http://icy.bioimageanalysis.org

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