Tag Archives: nerd

Python 2.6 enabled VTK 5.4 Windows binaries

Posted on August 13, 2009 by cpbotha| 26 Comments

You can always check my Latest VTK Windows binaries page to make sure you have the latest blog posting and hence the latest binaries.  It also links to the “old” Python 2.5 VTK 5.4.1 binaries.

I’ve made available my home-baked VTK 5.4.2 Windows binaries.  These have the new-and-improved version of my python-exception-patches integrated (more about this in a future post; a serious dead-lock has been fixed and as a side-effect, you can now run multiple VTK pipelines in different threads!) and have been built with Visual Studio 2008 (9.0) SP1 on Windows XP SP3 with full Python 2.6 support.  Get the binaries (or my patched source) from the two links below.  You want the binaries if you want to use VTK from Python.

IMPORTANT: you might have to install the MS VS2008 SP1 vcredist_x86 package (free!) if you want to use these DLLs (thanks Jelle for pointing this out).  This might not be necessary if you already have one or more of the MS development environments installed.

Please leave a comment on this blog posting if you use these or just hate them. It’s almost like postcard-ware, but with blog comments. Please also link to this page and not directly to the download location, thanks!

To use this from Python, you need to add the following to your PATH:

  • d:\opt\VTK\bin

You also need to add all of the above to PYTHONPATH, as well as the following:

  • d:\opt\VTK\lib\site-packages

… where d:\opt is the drive and directory where you unpacked the ZIP file.

Once you’ve done this and logged out and in again, “import vtk” should work at the Python prompt. Shameless plug: you can use my free envedit software to do the environment editing. It beats the default XP editing thingy.

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Python 2.5 enabled VTK 5.4 Windows binaries

Posted on May 23, 2009 by cpbotha| 10 Comments

You can always check my Latest VTK Windows binaries page to make sure you have the latest blog posting and hence the latest binaries.

I’ve made available my home-baked VTK 5.4 (actually build from a CVS VTK-5-4-1 tag checkout) Windows binaries.  These have the new-and-improved version of my python-exception-patches integrated (more about this in a future post; a serious dead-lock has been fixed and as a side-effect, you can now run multiple VTK pipelines in different threads!) and have been built with Visual Studio 2005 (8.0) SP1 on Windows XP2 with full Python 2.5 support.  Get the binaries (or my patched source) by going here.  You want the binaries if you want to use VTK from Python.

IMPORTANT: you might have to install the MS VS2005 vcredist_x86 package (free!) if you want to use these DLLs (thanks Jelle for pointing this out).  This might not be necessary if you already have one or more of the MS development environments installed.

Please leave a comment on this blog posting if you use these or just hate them. It’s almost like postcard-ware, but with blog comments. Please also link to this page and not directly to the download location, thanks!

To use this from Python, you need to add the following to your PATH:

  • d:\opt\VTK\bin

You also need to add all of the above to PYTHONPATH, as well as the following:

  • d:\opt\VTK\lib\site-packages

… where d:\opt is the drive and directory where you unpacked the ZIP file.

Once you’ve done this and logged out and in again, “import vtk” should work at the Python prompt. Shameless plug: you can use my free envedit software to do the environment editing. It beats the default XP editing thingy.

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Lust

Posted on January 8, 2008 by cpbotha| 5 Comments

More or less every two years, I am overcome by uncontrollable lust.

Lust for some fresh computing hardware, that is.  YEAH!

1.5 years ago it was the HP NC8430 laptop, 2 years before that my beloved HP NC6000, and slightly short of two years before that the infinitely heavy stoeptegel-1 (I still think there’s a mini-blackhole in there somewhere).

It’s almost that time again, so I have begun shopping around (in WAB time, of course) for an affordable yet absurdly fast desktop for use at home, in my secret laboratory.  Oh wait, there’s no secret laboratory.  Really.

I was planning to get something with the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (4 cores at 2.4 GHz, 2 x MB L2 cache, 1066 MHz quad-clocked FSB), but Jorik fortunately recommended (thanks!) waiting for the soon-to-be-available Penryn 45nm quad cores.   Seems Intel has announced the definite release of 16 new 45nm CPUs at the CES, including the similarly price-ranged but far more desirable Quad Q9450 (4 cores at 2.66 GHz, 2 x 6MB L2 cache, 1333 MHz quad-clocked FSB).

Throw 4 GB of DDR2 RAM, a Hitachi P7K500 half terabyte hard drive, a passively cooled GeForce 8600 GT 512MB and some 64-bit Ubuntu goodness at it, and you have some serious workstation action that doesn’t even leave you half-destitute!

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