vtk.i

A SWIG interface for VTK.

Rationale

This interface is useful when your project uses SWIG to generate it's Python API and

1. your API contains VTK objects that will be wrapped by VTK's wrapper generator
2. any of your classes derive from VTK objects and thus are reference counted using VTK's reference counting implementation

Usage

The interface comes in the form of a number of macros. One uses the macros to enable SWIG to make use of VTK's reference counting implementation and to expose your classes which are derived from a VTK class.

In order to use include vtk.i into your SWIG .i file and call one of the macros below that expose VTK objects to SWIG.

%include <vtk.i>

VTK_SWIG_INTEROP

VTK_SWIG_INTEROP(vtk_t)

arguments:

vtk_t - a VTK class name that is used in the SWIG generated API.

The macro defines the typemaps needed for SWIG to convert to and from VTK's Python bindings. Use this when your API containes pointers to classes defined in VTK.

For example if your API makes use of vtkObjectBase and vtkDataObject your SWIG .i file would include:

VTK_SWIG_INTEROP(vtkObjectBase)
VTK_SWIG_INTEROP(vtkDataObject)

There will be one macro invokation per VTK class appearing in your API.

VTK_DERIVED

VTK_DERIVED(derived_t)

arguments:

derived_t - name of a class that derives from vtkObjectBase.

The macro causes SWIG to wrap the class and defines memory management hooks that prevent memory leaks when SWIG creates the objects. Use this to wrap VTK classes defined in your project.

For example if you define a class derived from vtkObject or one of its subclasses called DataAdaptor your SWIG .i file would include:

VTK_DERIVED(DataAdaptor)

Note that you will also need to call VTK_SWIG_INTEROP for any VTK classes in your class's API including vtkObjectBase.

Examples

The SENSEI project makes use of these macros. Specifically in senseiPython.i.

License

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.