Documentation/Labs/VTK6

This page will document experiments related to the upgrade of Slicer base to VTK6.

References

• http://www.kitware.com/source/home/post/116
• http://www.kitware.com/blog/home/post/509
• http://www.kitware.com/blog/home/post/508

Build System

• VTK_6 build system Migration Guide

Transition from VTK5 to VTK6

This section documents required change to make Slicer code work with VTK6.

• See VTK_6 Migration Guide

Use SetInputPolyDataConnection and GetPolyDataConnection

Starting with Slicer r24801, support for VTK5 API was removed and VTK6 API should be used.

Error message similar to:

error: ‘class vtkMRMLModelDisplayNode’ has no member named ‘SetInputPolyData’
 resultDisplay->SetInputPolyData(resultModel->GetPolyData());
                ^

Solution:

Replace occurrences of SetInputPolyData/GetPolyData with SetInputPolyDataConnection/GetPolyDataConnection.

Use AllocateScalars

Starting with Slicer r24801, support for VTK5 API was removed and VTK6 API should be used.

Error message similar to:

  error: no matching function for call to ‘vtkImageData::SetNumberOfScalarComponents(int)’
    mp_phi->SetNumberOfScalarComponents(1);
                                         ^

Solution:

Replace lines like:

 imageData->SetScalarTypeToUnsignedShort();		
 imageData->SetNumberOfScalarComponents(1); // image holds one value intensities		
 imageData->AllocateScalars(); // allocate storage for image data

with:

 imageData->AllocateScalars(VTK_UNSIGNED_SHORT, 1); // allocate storage for image data

Progress

• VTK6 has been integrated into Slicer trunk. It is disabled by default. To enable it, pass the option -DVTK_VERSION_MAJOR:STRING=6
  • Using ccmake and setting the VTK_VERSION_MAJOR variable does not seem to work. The first "generation" in ccmake, causes a VTKv5 structure to be created which is not overwritten by subsequent runs with VTK_VERSION_MAJOR changed. I had to remove the VTKv5 directories from the build and run cmake as described above with -DVTK_VERSION_MAJOR:STRING=6. - Jim

• See https://docs.google.com/a/kitware.com/document/d/1tT4VBJtt6U0LUEyaNaW7hJIVbb2XqBdyEbQyfsmUq9I