The VTK User’s Guide 11th Edition Contributors: Lisa S. Avila, Kitware Utkarsh Ayachit, Kitware Sébastien Barré, Kitware Jeff Baumes, Kitware Francois Bertel, Kitware Rusty Blue, Kitware David Cole, Kitware David DeMarle, Kitware Berk Geveci, Kitware William A. Hoffman, Kitware Brad King, Kitware Karthik Krishnan, Kitware C. Charles Law, Kitware Kenneth M. Martin, Kitware William McLenDon, SanDia National Laboratories Philippe Pebay, Sandia National Laboratories Niki Russell, Kitware William J. SchroeDer, Kitware Timothy SheaD, SanDia National Laboratories Jason Shepherd, Sandia National Laboratories Andrew Wilson, Sandia National Laboratories Brian Wylie, SanDia National Laboratories The VTK User’s Guide 11th Edition Published by Kitware, Inc. Join the VTK Community at http://www.vtk.org. Commercial support and consulting is available for this software from Kitware, Inc. Please visit http://www.kitware.com for more information or send email to [email protected]. © 2010 Kitware, Inc. http://www.kitware.com All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproDuceD, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the publisher. The publisher Kitware, Inc. offers discounts on this book when ordered in bulk quantities. Kitware also publishes a companion text, The Visualization Toolkit An Object-Oriented Approach to 3D Graphics by Schroeder, Martin and Lorensen, anD proviDes commercial training, support and consulting for VTK. For more information contact Kitware, Inc. at [email protected]. All product names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners. PrinteD in Columbia. ISBN 978-1-930934-23-8 Contents Part I An Introduction to VTK Chapter 1 Welcome 3 1.1 User Guide Organization . .4 1.2 How to Learn VTK. .4 1.3 Software Organization . .4 Obtaining The Software. .5 Directory Structure . .5 Documentation. .6 Data . .6 1.4 Additional Resources . .6 Chapter 2 Installation 9 2.1 Overview . .9 2.2 CMake . .10 2.3 Installing VTK on WinDows XP, Vista or later . .10 Binary Installation . .11 Source CoDe Installation . .12 2.4 Installing VTK on Unix Systems . .14 Source CoDe Installation . .15 CMake . .15 Compiling the Source CoDe. .17 BuilDing VTK On Multiple Platforms. .17 Installing VTK. .17 Chapter 3 System Overview 19 3.1 System Architecture . .19 Low-Level Object MoDel . .20 The RenDering Engine. .21 The Visualization Pipeline. .25 3.2 Create An Application . .29 User MethoDs, Observers, anD CommanDs . .29 Tcl . .30 C++ . .30 Java . .36 Python . .36 3.3 Conversion Between Languages . .37 Part II Learn VTK By Example Chapter 4 The Basics 41 4.1 Creating Simple MoDels. .42 ProceDural Source Object . .42 ReaDer Source Object . .44 4.2 Using VTK Interactors . .45 vi vtkRenderWindowInteractor . 45 Interactor Styles . 46 4.3 Filtering Data. 48 4.4 Controlling The Camera . 49 Instantiating The Camera . 49 Simple Manipulation Methods . 50 Controlling The View Direction. 50 Perspective Versus Orthogonal Views. 50 Saving/Restoring Camera State . 51 4.5 Controlling Lights . 51 Positional Lights. 51 4.6 Controlling 3D Props . 52 Specifying the Position of a vtkProp3D. 52 Actors . 53 Level-Of-Detail Actors. 55 Assemblies . 56 Volumes . 57 vtkLODProp3D . 57 4.7 Using Texture . 58 4.8 Picking. 59 vtkAssemblyPath . 61 Example . 61 4.9 vtkCoorDinate anD CoorDinate Systems . 62 4.10 Controlling vtkActor2D . 62 4.11 Text Annotation. 63 2DText Annotation. 63 3D Text Annotation and vtkFollower . 65 4.12 Special Plotting Classes . 66 Scalar Bar . 66 X-Y Plots . 66 Bounding Box Axes (vtkCubeAxesActor2D) . 68 Labeling Data . 68 4.13 Transforming Data . 70 Advanced Transformation . 72 3D Widgets. 72 4.14 Antialiasing . 76 Per-primitive type antialiasing . 77 Multisampling . 79 4.15 Translucent polygonal geometry. 79 4.16 Animation . 83 Animation Scene (vtkAnimationScene). 83 Chapter 5 Visualization Techniques 89 5.1 Visualizing vtkDataSet (anD Subclasses) . 89 Working With Data Attributes . 89 Color Mapping . 92 Contouring . 93 Glyphing. 94 Streamlines . 95 Stream Surfaces . ..