Notes on running VTK 5.0               alexp 2/4/06

The author-provided "cmake" utility is used to set up configuration
files needed to build VTK and examples.

The libraries and associated binaries have been prebuilt and installed
in the locker for Sun and Linux. The Tcl, C++ and Java bindings have
been built and tested. In order to run examples (and your own code), you 
should first add the vtkit_v5.0 locker and source file /mit/vtkit_v5.0/envset
from the shell, which sets up necessary lockers and environment
variables. It is best to use the same compilers used to build the
libraries- these are:

Sun: gcc version 3.4.3 (csl-sol210-3_4-branch+sol_rpath)
Linux: gcc version 3.4.4 20050721 (Red Hat 3.4.4-2)

The master configuration file is
/mit/vtkit_v5.0/distrib/VTK/CMakeCache.txt; this is created by running
cmake interactively (cmake -i) and answering a long list of questions-
this has already been done for you and appropriate responses were made
to create the existing CMakeCache.txt which you can use; note that
this is really two different files on Linux and Sun machines.

The responses selected assume certain auxiliary applications are available
in certain lockers- specifically, Tcl/Tk binaries and libraries in the tcl
locker and Java in the "current" Java locker (root at /mit/java/current). 

First, run the following command from the shell prompt after adding the
vtkit_v5.0 locker:

source /mit/vtkit_v5.0/envset

To run Tcl examples:

This is the simplest way to use the toolkit; cd to the desired
directory where a Tcl example is located, such as
../Examples/Tutorial/Step1/Tcl/Cone.tcl, and run "vtk" on it:

vtk Cone.tcl

To run Java examples:

Copy the desired Java source file, such as
../Examples/Tutorial/Step1/Java/Cone.java, to a place where you have write
permission, then compile and run it in the usual way:

javac Cone.java
java Cone

To run C++ examples:

Copy the directory including the source code of the example (such as
../Examples/Tutorial/Step1/Cxx/Cone.cxx) and file CMakeLists.txt to a
place where you have write permission, run "cmake ."  from the top
level (the directory where CMakeLists.txt is located), Then type
"gmake". This should build a binary (like "Cone"), which can then be
run stand-alone.

Note: on Suns, you may get a message like:

It is impossible to order the linker search path in such a way that
libraries specified as full paths will be picked by the linker.

This is most likely harmless and can be ignored.

To build your own code, it's best to model your makefiles on the ones created
by cmake to build the examples. As noted in earlier VTK releases, there is
an issue of making all the many dynamic libraries accessible to dynamically
linked binaries at run time- see file README.dynamic_linking for more
information.