wxVTK

Yet Another Port of wxVTKRenderWindowInteractor

Overview

This class enable VTK to render to and interact with wxWidgets (formerly wxWindows) just as any wxWidgets component.
wxVTKRenderWindowInteractor provide a VTK widget for wxWidgets. This class was completely rewritten to have the Look & Feel of the python version.

Features

MSW, X11, GTK (2.x is now the default one) and Mac (Carbon require VTK5, and Cocoa was never fully working as of wx 2.6.2) (For now Motif port is not fully working - testers required);
VTK 3.1, 3.2, 4.0, 4.2, 4.4, 5.0, 5.2, CVS;
wxWidgets 2.2.9, 2.3.1, 2.4.0 (buggy under linux), 2.4.1(still buggy under linux), 2.4.2 (seems ok), 2.6.x (seems ok), 2.8.x (seems ok);
wxWidgets reparenting is enable with VTK 4.3 and upper;
Mouse wheel is available since VTK 4.4.

Caveats

Mouse Capture: Solved !
See problem description here. And the magic --sync ...
There is a know bug that prevent this class to works for more info see WX_USE_X_CAPTURE. This bug only affect wxGTK from 2.3.2 to wxGTK 2.4.0. (For wxPython this correspond to wxPython 2.3.2 to 2.4.0.7 included).
See also History, 2) This is be fixed by now (in wxGTK 2.4.1 and upper)
Flickering issues/and : Solved !
Reported by Prabhu Ramachandran see his thread.
In wxGTK 2.3.1 and before if you didn't use wxGLCanvas you'll end up with a lot ok flickering that's why this class is templated over wxGLCanvas.
You can avoid this effect by playing with WX_BASE_CLASS at your risk. See wxGLCanvas/Scrollbars drawback (*).
BadWindow issue: Solved !
```
Gdk-ERROR **: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)
  serial 110 error_code 3 request_code 4 minor_code 0
```
I have been told that this bug desepear in XFree86 4.3 but had no chance to try it myself...
(*) Scrollbars:
Furthermore this class is tempated over either wxWindows or wxGLCanvas, in wxWidgets 2.3.1 and earlier, the wxGLCanvas had scroll bars.
Ordering of classes, according to Vadim Zeitling one should always start multiple inheritance with the wxWidgets class

Download

source (tar.gz) (current version is 1.3)

To compile use the CMakeLists.txt (CMake).
Or for VTK 3.2 and older the Sample comes with a Makefile that you need to edit by hand (see oldbin directory in archive)!

Changes

1.3 (1 June 2008)

wxVTK requires CMake 2.6 now.

1.2 (31 January 2007)

wxVTK requires CMake 2.4.5 now. This should solve the issue for bug #1611004,
Support wxGTK 2.8.0. wxGTK will now use wxWindow in wxGTK 2.8.0 and above. Thus you do not need to compile with opengl support anymore now,
Fix compilation on wxX11 (Thanks to David Akers for report & patch).

1.1 (29 January 2007)

wxVTK requires CMake 2.4.4 now,
Partial patch to support wxGTK 2.8.0 (thanks to Philip Schuchardt for report). But this is still not supported as they removed the empty default cstor: [wxGLCanvas: empty (default) constructor],
Added wheel mouse support (Thanks to Philip Schuchardt for patch),
Fix compilation on non-GTK (Thanks to Reinhold Füreder for report & patch).

1.0 (3 August 2006)

wxVTK requires CMake 2.4 now. (CMake 2.4.3 suffers from bug #3582)
Apply patch from Alexander Nip to fix the 'BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)'
Some other minor fixes, I lost track of them, sorry :-P

0.8 (22 March 2005)

Carbon version declared working ! (Not all examples due to VTK-Carbon limitations)
MSW: Fix resize problem (Thanks to patch from John Norris)
A few cleanup in the code (use vtkTestUtilities instead of hardcoded paths)

0.7 (12 September 2003)

Initial start of Mac support ! A very big thank to Stefan Csomor !
I was able to reproduce this bug. So please read the README file first. It -should- contains all necessary informations.
I have also added some more examples. I was once reported the vtkImageViewer/vtkImageViewer2 could not be used. So I added some examples on how to use it.

0.6 (9 July 2003)

wxWidgets 2.4.1 is out, it should solve the problem with WX_USE_X_CAPTURE. Thus wxWidgets 2.4.0 is officially declared unsupported. wxVTKRWI should still work but not in the near future (versions not supported are wxGTK from 2.3.2 up to 2.4.0). Again you can't capture the mouse with wxGTK 2.3.2 to wxGTK 2.4.0 otherwise it'll freeze your X session !

IMPORTANT note:
Even if this version (2.4.1) fixes a bug with mouse it introduced one (at least under GTK). So you need to change src/gtk/timer.cpp 1.16.2.1 to timer.cpp 1.16.2.3. See my mail here. And go to CVS here to get it. So the recommended (=stable) wxGTK release is still 2.2.9 under Linux/GTK.
Remove all references to WX_BASE_CLASS, this is less readable but I didn't find a good solution to deal with C++ RTTI stuff. Fixed.
-> To simplify I removed wxGLCanvas support for MSW (wxWindow seems to be working in all case) and on the contrary wxWindow support for GTK (wxWindow is not working in too many cases). If you still want to derive from your specific class (e.g wxScrolledWindow) feel free to do it yourself.
SplitSample now use wxCLIP_CHILDREN, this has been reported by Nigel Nunn to reduce flickering on Windows. Flickering should -hopefully- be solved this time.

Nigel Nunn also reported a problem with destructor in Sample:

Also, commented out pRenderer->Delete().  This kills the process, 
but I get same problem with the MFC version. (Vtk: Dec 14 2002) 

void MyFrame::DestroyVTK()
{
  if (pRenderer != 0) { 
    // pRenderer->Delete();  ! Note: skip this line 
  } 
  ... 
}

0.5

Some minor clean up,
Provide FindwxWindow.cmake & FindGTK.cmake since I am not clear with the one provided with CMake 1.6.7 (this is transparent for user and doesn't require any particular skill).

0.4

Memory leak fix.

0.3

Nicolas Clemeur reported some bugs when using GTK 2.x / and VTK 3.1: should be fixed now. He also reported this bug with Exceed: not fixed.
Daniel Go has still some problems with the destructor and with the OnSize event: Not fixed yet.

0.2

Charl Botha request that CaptureMouse was disable. See here.
This is now feasible with the method UseCaptureMouse(On/Off):
```
wxVTKRenderWindowInteractor *vtkRWI;
```
```
vtkRWI->UseCaptureMouseOn();
```
Beware that this methode will actually do something only if WX_USE_X_CAPTURE was set to one. Meaning that all the tests for version were successfull (or the user decided to override the tests, because he hacks down wxGTK !)
Daniel C Go reported some compilation problems with wxMSW. This should be fixed.

0.1
First release.

Screenshots

History

Well first of,I hope this time the never ending story of wxVTK has finally comes to an end (as of 4/24/03) !

Flickering issues.
- Many people experienced first this bad flickering issue. See here and here.
WX_USE_X_CAPTURE.
Here are a couple of threads that I wanted to leave so people won't have to reinvent the wheel:
- Even on windows there was some mouse issues !
- Brian Todd reported that wxVTKRenderWindow freezes at any resize operation.
- You can have a look at my posts first one and second one on the wx mailing list.
- Here is the first mail from Robert Roebling which I thought by that time would fix everything. This was a tiny mouse typo, see here for more info.
- Then, here is the mail from Owen Taylor that fixes the XFlush after grabing the mouse.
  
  Mon Apr 21 15:07:29 2003 Owen Taylor <otaylor at redhat dot com>
  
  * gdk/x11/gdkdisplay-x11.c (gdk_display_keyboard/pointer_ungrab):
  Calling XFlush() after ungrabbing, to avoid problems if
  the app subsequently blocks on a long-running operation.
  (#106520, reported by Rajkumar Siva)
Old stuff
Brian Todd first wxVTKWindow attempt. The web site is dead use web archive
David D. Marshall wxVTKWindow. The web site is dead use web archive
Robin Dunn first attempt. in python only.
DRI troubles:
Charl Botha troubles with DRI.

Advantage of wxWindow over Qt:

Only the Linux version of Qt is available under GPL. To develop Qt software under Windows, you must buy the Qt/Windows Professional kit for $1550.00 per developer, even if you're developing free software. Moreover you are forbidden from developing GPL software using the Windows version of Qt.
Thus, Qt really does not seem to be competitive with WxWindows for multiplatform development, particularly if you're developing free software.
Also some links from wxWidgets home site:
wxWidgets Compared To Other Toolkits?

From the TrollTech FAQ.

FAQ:

This class derive from wxWindow for MSW and from wxGLCanvas for GTK...
wxGLCanvas : No mouse grab hack is needed with GTK 2.x . Beware, wxGLCanvas is needed to handle GTK 2.x double buffering interfering with the one from OpenGL
WX_USE_X_CAPTURE = // Keep capturing mouse after mouse is dragged out of window
// (in wxGTK 2.3.2 there is a bug that keeps this from working,
// but it is only relevant in wxGTK if there are multiple windows)

Contact

wxvtk-users AT lists DOT sourceforge DOT net

You need to register to post a mail: http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wxvtk-users
Feel free to report bugs, make suggestions for future releases or any feedback you may have with this software.

Thanks to SourceForge for hosting my website and CVS.