[vtk-developers] Use (`new') GLEW in VTK?

[tom fogal]

David Partyka <david.partyka at kitware.com> writes:
> Hi Tom,
>
> This looks like a very cool contribution! To get this moving forward
> I am in the process of setting up some dashboards that will build
> your VTK fork so we can see how the tests do on a few platforms. One
> of us will also contact you about code review and how to best get
> this integrated.

I had been caught up in deadlines but should slowly gain some time to
finish up + correct this code over the next couple weeks.  I still
consider it incomplete... but I'm curious about the status.  Has this
dashboard been set up?  What problems has it uncovered / how can I view
them?

Thanks,

-tom

(P.S. The interactive http access has been taken down, FWIW, but you'd
want to use the git transport anyway.)

> On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 3:57 PM, tom fogal <tfogal at sci.utah.edu> wrote:
> 
> > Ping!
> >
> > I imagine this initially went out while many were on vacation.  Hoping
> > people are back now...
> >
> > -tom
> >
> > tom fogal <tfogal at sci.utah.edu> writes:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I'm forwarding this along again, without the patches attached, because
> > > they made the message so large that it got stuck in a moderation queue.
> > >
> > > -tom
> > >
> > > ------- Forwarded Message
> > >
> > > Reply-To: tfogal at sci.utah.edu
> > > From: tom fogal <tfogal at sci.utah.edu>
> > > To: vtk-developers at vtk.org
> > > cc: pugmire at ornl.gov
> > > Subject: Use (`new') GLEW in VTK?
> > > MIME-Version: 1.0
> > > Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----- =_aaaaaaaaaa0"
> > > Content-ID: <3675.1293055749.0 at shigeru.sci.utah.edu>
> > > Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 15:10:12 -0700
> > >
> > > - ------- =_aaaaaaaaaa0
> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> > > Content-ID: <3675.1293055749.1 at shigeru.sci.utah.edu>
> > >
> > > I've been working on a VTK hack in recent days, and given the "Render
> > > tests ... Mesa features" thread, I figured now was a good time to bring
> > > it to light.
> > >
> > > I'm working with the VisIt team and trying to help figure out our best
> > > route forward with a long-overdue VTK upgrade.  One of the issues we
> > > hit is with offscreen rendering.  It seems the `system' GL + Mangled
> > > Mesa setup has been allowed to atrophy in recent versions of VTK.  This
> > > puts us in a bit of a bind, as the feature is critical for us.
> > >
> > > For various reasons, we must delay the choice of GL library until
> > > runtime.  Thus any sort of compile-time solution (i.e. building one
> > > "Mesa+VTK-based binary" and one "GL+VTK-based binary") isn't going to
> > > work for us.  We also hit the issue that GLEW 1.x -- which we use for
> > > some of our code that performs custom rendering -- was making the above
> > > choice at compile-time.
> > >
> > > We've been working with GLEW upstream to get a version of GLEW that
> > > does not utilize an OpenGL library at compile-time at all.  Instead, it
> > > dlopen()s (or similar) the GL library and loads function pointers that
> > > way.  This would obviate the need to even link an OpenGL library at
> > > all.  This modified version will turn into GLEW version 2 in the first
> > > quarter 2011.
> > >
> > > We'd like to get VTK doing the same thing we do.  I attached a (hacky)
> > > patch series that should give you the gist of what we're thinking
> > > about.  There's some things still missing (notably, the CMake machinery
> > > to avoid linking -lGL or -lMesaGL at all), but I tested a couple of
> > > the VTK example programs and they seem to be okay.  We could speak at
> > > length about what's still needed and why this is a Good Thing, if you'd
> > > like (given the aforementioned thread -- one nice bonus: just set an
> > > env var or command line option, and you can test with a new GL: no
> > > recompilation required!).
> > >
> > > I'd like to appeal to the VTK developers that we adopt a
> > > corrected-version of the attached patchset into VTK.  We (the VisIt
> > > team) have had a lot of custom hacks to VTK over the years, and,
> > > frankly, most if not all of us hate it.  We'd really like to start
> > > aligning a bit better, and now seems like a great time, since we are
> > > contemplating a VTK upgrade.
> > >
> > > The patch series is also available online, if you prefer that:
> > >
> > >   http://shigeru.sci.utah.edu:1234/?p=vtk.git;a=summary
> > >   git://shigeru.sci.utah.edu/vtk.git
> > >
> > > Thanks for your consideration,