[vtkusers] vtk, python20, TkRenderWidget, Win2000

[Prabhu Ramachandran]

hi,

>>>>> "Jim" == CRD  <Miller> writes:

    Jim> David and John, I saw that you werew changing the build
    Jim> process for vtk's python bindings on the pc, so I'll direct
    Jim> my question towards you.

    Jim> I am trying to build the python bindings for vtk on a pc with
    Jim> Windows2000 (shouldn't matter, but I have hit upon some other
    Jim> Win2000 library problems).  The normal python bindings work
    Jim> fine, but when I use TkRenderWidget my program crashes.  The
    Jim> build process seems to build the TkRenderWidget dll fine.

If by "crash" you mean it says something like "Cant load
TkRenderWidget" or something when you run the program from a shell,
then, IMHO, this is because the installation doesnt run install.py
that is in the python dir in the source tree.  I mentioned this
sometime back on this list.  The install.py copies the
TkRenderWidget.dll to a system directory and if this isnt done then
Tcl cant load the library.

    Jim> Since this is the TkRenderWidget, my first assumption is that
    Jim> vtk and python are building with different versions of
    Jim> tcl/tk.  (Any time TkRenderWidget doesn't work in tcl the
    Jim> cause is usually that vtk is built against one version and is
    Jim> executing against a different version.) By default, vtk is
    Jim> building with tcl 8.2 and it looks like python 2.0 ships with
    Jim> tcl 8.3.

    Jim> Are you building off the vtk repository with python 2.0? Do I
    Jim> need to go grab the source for tcl 8.3 so I can build vtk
    Jim> with the same version of tcl that python ships with?

I thought that vtk had problems building with Tcl/Tk8.3?  A lot of
folks have problems installing/building/running VTK these days with
RedHat/Mandrake 7.x.  Python and Tcl versions are also causing some
pesky problems.  Since VTK is not easy to build (not everyone has the
patience to build something that takes 3 hours to build on a PC), can
we all do something to make sure that it is easy to build/install and
run VTK?  I dont mind helping out with this.

prabhu