Regarding (New) Ways to build own Modules after ParaView-TTK integration in 2021 October

[Domantas Dilys]

Hello,

To start with, I must note that I am a very new user of TTK. To get an understanding of  implementing my own modules, I have been following the TTK Tutorials on the main website. 

However, most of those tutorials were written before the 2021 TTK integration with ParaView, and all assume that the user has TTK already installed. 

The latest and up-to-date one I have found is from 2019 and has been updated very recently (2022 September): https://github.com/topology-tool-kit/ttk/wiki/Guidelines-for-Developing-a-New-TTK-Module

This latest tutorial states as follows:

"At this point, if you build and install TTK, your new module should be readily available and executable in ParaView." 

Question:

1) Does ParaView in the above quote actually refer to TTK-patched-ParaView application (such as the ttk-paraview-v-5.10.1.exe), rather than one you'd download from https://www.paraview.org/download/ ?

Is my understanding correct:

If one wants to use existing TTK functions, the ParaView-TTK integration (so, downloading the latest ParaView release from https://www.paraview.org/download/) is enough. 

However, if one wants to build own modules, then all the steps of pre-integrated TTK should be followed (like - installing TTK manually, then running scripts/createTTKmodule.sh and finally building)

Question:

2) When building/testing our own module, must we launch not the regular, ... but the TTK-patched-ParaView - the dark-themed, blue-white-green logo application executable provided in ttk-paraview-v-5.10.1.exe?

To conclude:

Please let me know if there is a new way after the official ParaView-TTK integration to build/test new modules, since I've been having troubles with TTK standalone installation, and so far relied on the ParaView-TTK Plugin, which comes with TTK installed on ParaView by default.

Thank you,

Domantas

[Julien Tierny]

Dear Domantas,

thanks for your email.

> *Is my understanding correct:*

> If one wants to use existing TTK functions, the ParaView-TTK integration
> (so, downloading the latest ParaView release from
> https://www.paraview.org/download/) is enough.
> However, if one wants to build own modules, then all the steps of
> pre-integrated TTK should be followed (like - installing TTK manually, then
> running scripts/createTTKmodule.sh and finally building)

Yes, this is correct.

> 2) When building/testing our own module, must we launch *not *the regular,

> ... but the TTK-patched-ParaView - the dark-themed, blue-white-green logo
> application executable provided in ttk-paraview-v-5.10.1.exe

> <https://github.com/topology-tool-kit/ttk-paraview/releases/download/v5.10.1/ttk-paraview-v5.10.1.exe>
When running your own module, you should run the version of ParaView you built your module against. So yes, the ttk-paraview version.
(note that the dark theme is not dependent on the version of paraview, but on the settings of your environment, in particular qt).

> Please let me know if there is a new way after the official ParaView-TTK
> integration to build/test new modules,

To develop your own module, the overall process has not changed:
- install paraview from sources
- install ttk from source
- create your module within ttk's sources and install ttk again (in effect, it will only build the files you modified).

Developing a module against the binary version of ParaView distributed by Kitware is not possible as the VTK and ParaView headers do not seem to ship within this distribution, although they are required to build TTK.

I hope this helps.

Best regards,
--
Dr Julien Tierny
CNRS Researcher
Sorbonne Universite
http://lip6.fr/Julien.Tierny

On Thursday, November 10, 2022 4:14:55 PM CET Domantas Dilys wrote:
> Hello,
> To start with, I must note that I am a very new user of TTK. To get an
> understanding of implementing my own modules, I have been following the
> TTK Tutorials on the main website.
>
> However, most of those tutorials were written before the 2021 TTK
> integration with ParaView, and all assume that the user has TTK already
> installed.
>
> The latest and up-to-date one I have found is from 2019 and has been
> updated very recently (2022 September):
> https://github.com/topology-tool-kit/ttk/wiki/Guidelines-for-Developing-a-New-TTK-Module
>
> This latest tutorial states as follows:

> *"At this point, if you build and install TTK, your new module should be
> readily available and executable in ParaView."*
> *Question:*

> 1) Does ParaView in the above quote actually refer to TTK-patched-ParaView
> application (such as the ttk-paraview-v-5.10.1.exe

> <https://github.com/topology-tool-kit/ttk-paraview/releases/download/v5.10.1/ttk-paraview-v5.10.1.exe>),

> rather than one you'd download from https://www.paraview.org/download/ ?
>
>

> *Is my understanding correct:*

> If one wants to use existing TTK functions, the ParaView-TTK integration
> (so, downloading the latest ParaView release from
> https://www.paraview.org/download/) is enough.
> However, if one wants to build own modules, then all the steps of
> pre-integrated TTK should be followed (like - installing TTK manually, then
> running scripts/createTTKmodule.sh and finally building)
>

> *Question:*
> 2) When building/testing our own module, must we launch *not *the regular,

> ... but the TTK-patched-ParaView - the dark-themed, blue-white-green logo
> application executable provided in ttk-paraview-v-5.10.1.exe

> <https://github.com/topology-tool-kit/ttk-paraview/releases/download/v5.10.1/ttk-paraview-v5.10.1.exe>
> ?
>
> *To conclude:*