Compile 9.0 without opengl

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1

Is it possible to compile vtk 9.0 without opengl? The only thing we need is the IO module of legacy vtk files and binary xml vtk files (pvtp, vtp, pvtu, vtu, etc).

I found instructions about this from an email back in 2015: https://vtk.org/pipermail/vtkusers/2015-May/090922.html
Unfortunately, this doesn’t work anymore. CMake still complains that OpenGL is not found. Here is the output of CMake:
– Could NOT find OpenGL (missing: OPENGL_opengl_LIBRARY OPENGL_glx_LIBRARY OPENGL_INCLUDE_DIR OpenGL)
CMake Error at CMake/vtkModule.cmake:4145 (message):
Could not find the OpenGL external dependency.
Call Stack (most recent call first):
CMake/vtkModule.cmake:4695 (vtk_module_find_package)
Utilities/OpenGL/CMakeLists.txt:58 (vtk_module_third_party_external)

How should I configure CMake of vtk-9?

Thank you

1 Like
2

Finally figured it out by trial-and-error. The old cmake macros in the 2015 email have been changed. Here is a cmake script that works for me:

cmake \

-D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:FILEPATH="$SFTPATH"
-D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=“Release”
-D BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF
-D CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER:STRING=“mpicxx”
-D CMAKE_C_COMPILER:STRING=“mpicc”
-D CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS:STRING="$CXXFLAGS"
-D CMAKE_C_FLAGS:STRING="$CFLAGS"
-D OpenMP_CXX_FLAGS:STRING="$OPENMP_CXX_FLAGS"
-D OpenMP_C_FLAGS:STRING="$OPENMP_C_FLAGS"
-D BUILD_TESTING=OFF
-D VTK_PYTHON_VERSION=3
-D VTK_SMP_IMPLEMENTATION_TYPE=“OpenMP”
-D VTK_WRAP_PYTHON:BOOL=OFF
-D VTK_GROUP_ENABLE_Imaging=NO
-D VTK_GROUP_ENABLE_MPI=NO
-D VTK_GROUP_ENABLE_Qt=NO
-D VTK_GROUP_ENABLE_StandAlone=NO
-D VTK_GROUP_ENABLE_Views=NO
-D VTK_GROUP_ENABLE_Web=NO
-D VTK_MODULE_ENABLE_VTK_CommonCore=YES
-D VTK_MODULE_ENABLE_VTK_CommonExecutionModel=YES
-D VTK_MODULE_ENABLE_VTK_CommonMath=YES
-D VTK_MODULE_ENABLE_VTK_CommonMisc=YES
-D VTK_MODULE_ENABLE_VTK_CommonSystem=YES
-D VTK_MODULE_ENABLE_VTK_CommonTransforms=YES
-D VTK_MODULE_ENABLE_VTK_IOCore=YES
-D VTK_MODULE_ENABLE_VTK_IOLegacy=YES
-D VTK_MODULE_ENABLE_VTK_IOParallelXML=YES
-D VTK_MODULE_ENABLE_VTK_IOXML=YES
-D VTK_MODULE_ENABLE_VTK_IOXMLParser=YES
-D VTK_MODULE_ENABLE_VTK_ParallelCore=YES
$EXTRA_ARGS
$VTK_PATH

1 Like
3

This worked for me with VTK version 9.0.3.

cmake -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS:BOOL=OFF -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=RELEASE -DBUILD_EXAMPLES=OFF -DBUILD_TESTING=OFF -DVTK_USE_SYSTEM_EXPAT:BOOL=ON -DVTK_USE_SYSTEM_ZLIB:BOOL=ON -DVTK_LEGACY_REMOVE=ON -DVTK_Group_Rendering=OFF -DVTK_Group_StandAlone=OFF -DVTK_RENDERING_BACKEND=None -DVTK_WRAP_PYTHON=OFF -DModule_vtkCommonCore=ON -DModule_vtkCommonDataModel=ON -DModule_vtkFiltersCore=ON -DModule_vtkImagingStencil=ON -DModule_vtkIOXML=ON -DModule_vtkIOImage=ON -DModule_vtkImagingSources=ON -DVTK_GROUP_ENABLE_Views=NO -DVTK_GROUP_ENABLE_Web=NO -DVTK_GROUP_ENABLE_Imaging=NO -DVTK_GROUP_ENABLE_Qt=DONT_WANT -DVTK_GROUP_ENABLE_Rendering=DONT_WANT -GNinja …/

4

I have the same issue but after some correction, configured & make

BUILD_DOCUMENTATION OFF
BUILD_EXAMPLES OFF
BUILD_SHARED_LIBS ON
BUILD_TESTING OFF
BUILD_USER_DEFINED_LIBS OFF
CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE Release
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX /usr/local
VTK_ANDROID_BUILD OFF
VTK_EXTRA_COMPILER_WARNINGS OFF
VTK_Group_Imaging OFF
VTK_Group_MPI OFF
VTK_Group_Qt OFF
VTK_Group_Rendering OFF
VTK_Group_StandAlone ON
VTK_Group_Tk OFF
VTK_Group_Views OFF
VTK_Group_Web OFF
VTK_IOS_BUILD OFF
VTK_PYTHON_VERSION 3
VTK_GLEXT_FILE /user/vtk/Utilities/ParseOGLExt/headers/glext.h
VTK_SMP_IMPLEMENTATION_TYPE Sequential
VTK_USE_LARGE_DATA OFF
VTK_WRAP_JAVA OFF
VTK_WRAP_PYTHON OFF
VTK_WRAP_TCL OFF

after that generate & make

5

It looks as though you all didn’t need the OpenGL library, so you wanted to turn off the error message. Is that right? I ask because it seems as though OpenGL would be necessary for visualizing anything, and isn’t that VTK’s main function? I am having the same problem as you all in finding OpenGL, but I feel like I’ll need VTK to find the OpenGL library, so I can’t just ignore the error message.

I see that in VTK documentation it says that “when a library such as OpenGL library is not located in the expected place, you will have to tell CMake the correct setting”, but I can’t seem to find where OpenGL is, and I am not sure what command line argument I would use to show where it is. Does anyone have any suggestions?