Installing VTK

VTK (Visualisation ToolKit) is a C++ class library that MOOSE needs to use modules of Image Processing. In Redback, we are using some of these functions to [create meshes from CT scan images](Creating meshes from CT-scan images).

VTK will be installed when compiling Libmesh with the right options.

Installation Commands

The official way of installing VTK is as follow:

cd ~/projects/moose/scripts
./update_and_rebuild_libmesh.sh --with-vtk-include=$VTKINCLUDE_DIR --with-vtk-lib=$VTKLIB_DIR

This is described in http://mooseframework.org/wiki/PhysicsModules/PhaseField/ImageReader/

Manual Installation

Instead of using variables that are not always pointing to the right folders that we need, you need to find the absolute path of the include and the lib folder of VTK. The paths should look like this:

• Include: --with-vtk-include=/opt/moose/vtk-6.3/clang-opt/include/vtk-6.3
• Lib: --with-vtk-lib=/opt/moose/vtk-6.3/clang-opt/lib

The paths are changing depending on your OS or your version of MOOSE. To find them, try to open these folders and look where .h (for include) or .dylib (for lib) are located. Note that you might also need to use the VTK directories in /opt/moose/vtk-6.3/gcc-opt/ rather than /opt/moose/vtk-6.3/clang-opt/.

Then you run the same scripts with the absolute paths instead of the variables. It should look like this:

cd ~/projects/moose/scripts
./update_and_rebuild_libmesh.sh --with-vtk-include=/opt/moose/vtk-6.3/clang-opt/include/vtk-6.3 --with-vtk-lib=/opt/moose/vtk-6.3/clang-opt/lib

Verification of sucessful installation

Pick up to the steps after Libmesh compilation in MOOSE Getting Started.

When you run the tests, you will be able to see that some tests have been skipped. You will easily notice on some either VTK!=false or VTK!=true.

The one that proves that VTK has been sucessfully installed is VTK!=false.