Documentation/Labs/VTK8

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This page documents the update of Slicer to use VTK 8.0.

Overview

It is planned to update the version of VTK that Slicer uses from 7.1 to 8.0.

Status

  • Builds on Linux and Windows; Mac is untested. Test runs are in progress.
  • EMSegment remote module will require updates to fix vtkDebugLeaks output.
  • Running on Windows gives OpenGL errors at exit with the OpenGL backend. The OpenGL2 backend is untested.
  • "VTKv7" project name needs to be updated to "VTKv8".

Branches/Merge Requests

VTK:

Slicer:

Outstanding VTK issues

Slicer-specific VTK commits

Slicer's VTK 8.0 branch includes fixes/changes that aren't in upstream:

Tests

This section lists test failures on each platform for Release builds.

Windows:

Test results:

  • TBD

Linux:

Test results:

  • TBD

OS X:

Test results:

  • TBD

Rendering backend

Although VTK 7 changed the default setting of VTK_RENDERING_BACKEND to OpenGL2, Slicer still explicitly sets it to OpenGL. Using the OpenGL2 backend in Slicer is untested and may require updates to properly build and function. This rendering backend in Slicer is set using Slicer_VTK_RENDERING_BACKEND.

OpenGL2 backend known issues

Open

Discussion

The transition plan was announced on the Slicer forum: https://discourse.slicer.org/t/transition-to-vtk-8-0/379.

Future work

Future work in Slicer related to VTK 8 could include:

  • Remove BTX/ETX markers.
  • CHeck for and resolve build warnings in Slicer VTK classes.
  • Check that settings in External_VTKv8.cmake are all still necessary, specifically VTK_USE_PARALLEL, and anything related to Qt.