We include vtk in Macports with an option to wrap python. This “standard” install includes the c++ libraries along with the python wrappers, but the .dist-info folder is not created or installed. When searching for a solution, I found vtk’s capability to perform a wheel build, which does create the .dist-info folder. However, a wheel build does not install the c++ libraries in a way that are usable outside of python. Might there be a straightforward way to create the .dist-info folder without using the wheel build?
I managed to use/abuse VTK’s configure and build systems to do what I want. After, performing a standard build and install with VTK_WRAP_PYTHON on and VTK_WHEEL_BUILD off, I reran cmake with VTK_WHEEL_BUILD on. Then I ran python setup.py dist_info to generate the .dist-info folder and contents, which can be manually copied into site-packages.
Python-wrapper developers: it would be nice to have a means to do this directly without the two step process.