Visualization Toolkit (VTK) Installation and usage

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Installation

Source code

The Gate github repository can be cloned like that

   https://github.com/Kitware/VTK

This will bring you to the master branch, tags can be checked out like this

   git checkout v8.0.1

Compilation

Make a build directory and execute in this directory `cmake <SOURCEDIR>`. Some interesting switches can be added with `-DSWITCH`

• `CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX`
• `VTK_WRAP_TCL` wrapper code for TCL
• `VTK_WRAP_PYTHON` wrapper code for Python
• `VTK_FORBID_DOWNLOADS` skip downloading of test data
• `VTK_RENDERING_BACKEND` default OpenGL2
• `BUILD_EXAMPLES` set to `ON` if examples should be built

Example session

   mkdir build
   cd build
   cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=../install -DVTK_WRAP_PYTHON=ON -DVTK_FORBID_DOWNLOADS=ON
   make install

Running

Make sure that the `bin` and `lib` directories of the installation are part of `PATH` and `LD_LIBRARY_PATH` respectively, e.g.

   export PATH=/the_installation_directory/bin:$PATH
   export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/the_installation_directory/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

TCL bindings

Start `vtk` and get the interactive prompt. Or run one script of the examples directly, e.g.

   vtk Examples/Tutorial/Step1/Tcl/Cone.tcl

Python bindings

Set `PYTHONPATH` to enable Python to find the available modules

   PYTHONPATH=$VTK_install/lib/pythonx.x/site-packages

Run a script directly

   python Examples/Tutorial/Step1/Python/Cone.py

Interactive Python

Run either `python` or `ipython` without arguments to come to the prompt. `ipython` can be recommended for interactive sessions.