1. NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham VTK
Sebastien BARRE, Ph.D. - Kitware, Inc.

2. VTK domain: Visualization
A definition for visualization
Map data or information into images or other sensory input (touch, sound, smell, taste)
Engages human perception system
Simple, effective powerful
Complex data
Voluminous data
NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham
June 16-17, 2008

3. VTK: The Visualization Toolkit
Began with a textbook (work began 1993 – 1st edition 1995)
NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham
June 16-17, 2008

4. What is VTK? A visualization toolkit
Designed and implemented using object-oriented principles
C++ class library (nearly 1,000,000 LOC)
Automated Java, Tcl, Python bindings
Portable across Unix, Windows, MacOSX
Supports 2D/3D graphics, visualization, image processing, volume rendering, infoviz, geoviz
2500+ user mailing list; 40+ active developers
World-wide academic, commercial, government users
Basis of college undergraduate and graduate courses
Free (BSD-like license)
NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham
June 16-17, 2008

5. VTK is not a system Embeddable Plays with other software Separable
Can pull out “pieces”
Adaptable
Not dependent on GUI
Not dependent on rendering library
NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham
June 16-17, 2008

6. Building applications with VTK
Applications can be created using
C++ (compiled language)
Tcl (interpreted language)
Java (interpreted language)
Python (interpreted language)
Interpreted Languages
Have GUI support
Easy to prototype with
Slower than compiled C++
NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham
June 16-17, 2008

7. DataSet types vtkRectilinearGrid vtkImageData vtkUnstructuredGrid
vtkStructuredGrid
Structured data – vtkImageData (axis-aligned, even spacing per dimension), vtkRectilinearGrid (axis-aligned, irregular spacing allowed), vtkStructuredGrid (not axis-aligned, irregular spacing allowed – uses hexahedra or quads)
Unstructured data – vtkPolyData (2D cells), vtkUnstructuredGrid (vtkPolyData + 3D cells)
vtkPolyData
NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham
June 16-17, 2008

8. Examples NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham

9. Surface rendering NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham

10. Volume rendering NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham

11. Image processing NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham

12. Information visualization
NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham
June 16-17, 2008

13. Interaction Widgets NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham

14. The VTK graphics subsystem
Instances of render window (vtkRenderWindow)‏
Renderer instances (vtkRenderer)‏
Actor instances (vtkActor)‏
NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham
June 16-17, 2008

15. The VTK graphics subsystem
A VTK scene consists of:
vtkRenderWindow - contains the final image
vtkRenderer - draws into the render window
vtkActor - combines properties / geometry
vtkLight - illuminate actors
vtkCamera - renders the scene
vtkPolyDataMapper - represents geometry
vtkTransform - position actors
NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham
June 16-17, 2008

16. render window interactor
VTK « Hello world »
sphere source
polydata mapper
actor
renderer
render window
render window interactor
NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham
June 16-17, 2008

17. VTK « Hello world » (C++)
vtkSphereSource *sphere = vtkSphereSource()::New(); // create data pipeline
vtkPolyDataMapper *sphereMapper = vtkPolyDataMapper::New();
sphereMapper->SetInputConnection(sphere->GetOutputPort());
vtkActor *sphereActor = vtkActor::New();
sphereActor->SetMapper(sphereMapper); //mapper connects actor with pipeline
vtkRenderer *renderer = vtkRenderer::New();
vtkRenderWindow *renWin = vtkRenderWindow::New();
renWin->AddRenderer(renderer);
vtkRenderWindowInteractor *iren = vtkRenderWindowInteractor::New();
iren->SetRenderWindow(renWin);
renderer->AddViewProp(sphereActor);
renderer->SetBackground(1,1,1);
renWin->SetSize(300,300);
renWin->Render();
iren->Start(); //starts the event loop
NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham
June 16-17, 2008

18. Find more about VTK… Online documentation http://vtk.org Wiki FAQ
Manual pages (Generated by doxygen)‏
search the archive of the mailing lists
Source code
Embedded documentation in header files *.h
Examples/ and Testing/ directories
Books
VTK Textbook
VTK User's Guide
NA-MIC, 2008 June Workshop, IHK Akademie Westerham
June 16-17, 2008