Package 'rvtk'

Title: Bindings for the Visualization Toolkit ('VTK')
Description: Provides pre-compiled static 'VTK' libraries and headers so that downstream R packages can link against the Visualization Toolkit without requiring users to install 'VTK' manually. On all platforms the package first honours a user-supplied 'VTK_DIR' environment variable. On macOS it then tries 'Homebrew', followed by 'pkg-config'. On Linux it tries 'pkg-config' and well-known system prefixes ('/usr', '/usr/local'). If no suitable system installation is found on macOS or Linux, pre-built static libraries are downloaded automatically from the package's GitHub releases. On Windows the package tries 'VTK_DIR', then 'Rtools45' 'pacman', then common 'MSYS2' prefixes, accepting both static ('.a') and shared ('.dll.a' import libs + DLLs) installations. When shared libraries are used, the VTK DLLs are staged in 'inst/vtk-dlls/' and an '.onLoad' hook prepends that directory to PATH via 'Sys.setenv()' when the package is loaded, and restored in '.onUnload()'. The pre-built fallback downloads static libraries by default; set 'VTK_LINK_TYPE=shared' before installation to download the DLL build instead. Note that on Windows the modules 'VTK_IONetCDF', 'VTK_IOHDF', 'VTK_GeovisCore', and 'VTK_RenderingCore' are disabled because 'netcdf' and 'libproj' are not available in the 'Rtools45' 'static.posix' sysroot. Downstream packages can declare 'Imports: rvtk' and obtain the correct compiler and linker flags at install time via rvtk::CppFlags() and rvtk::LdFlagsFile().
Authors: Aymeric Stamm [aut, cre] (ORCID: <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8725-3654>)
Maintainer: Aymeric Stamm <[email protected]>
License: MIT + file LICENSE
Version: 0.1.3
Built: 2026-05-11 10:51:30 UTC
Source: https://github.com/cran/rvtk

Help Index

Compiler flags for packages linking against VTK

Description

Returns the C pre-processor flags (-I paths) required to compile C++ code that includes VTK headers. Intended to be called from a downstream package's configure or configure.win script:

Usage

CppFlags()

Details

VTK_CPPFLAGS="$("${R_HOME}/bin/Rscript" --vanilla -e "rvtk::CppFlags()")"

Value

A single character string of compiler flags, written to stdout (so that it can be captured by shell command substitution in configure) and returned invisibly.

Examples

flags <- CppFlags()

Linker flags for packages linking against VTK

Description

Returns the linker flags (-L paths and -l library names) required to link C++ code against VTK. Intended to be called from a downstream package's configure or configure.win script:

Usage

LdFlags()

Details

VTK_LIBS="$("${R_HOME}/bin/Rscript" --vanilla -e "rvtk::LdFlags()")"

On Windows the full set of VTK linker flags can exceed the 8 191-character command-line limit. Prefer LdFlagsFile() on Windows to write the flags to a response file instead.

Value

A single character string of linker flags, written to stdout (so that it can be captured by shell command substitution in configure) and returned invisibly.

Examples

flags <- LdFlags()

Write VTK linker flags to a response file

Description

On Windows the full set of VTK linker flags can exceed the 8 191-character Windows command-line limit, causing the linker to drop flags at the end of the list. This function writes the flags to a plain-text response file that the linker reads via the ⁠@file⁠ syntax, keeping the command line short.

Usage

LdFlagsFile(path, os_type = .Platform$OS.type)

Arguments

path

Path (relative to the package source root, i.e. where configure runs) to the response file to write on Windows, e.g. "src/vtk_libs.rsp". Ignored on non-Windows platforms.
os_type

A string identifying the operating-system type, defaulting to .Platform$OS.type. Override to "windows" or "unix" in tests to exercise the Windows response-file branch without needing a Windows environment.

Details

Intended to be called from a downstream package's configure or configure.win script: 

VTK_LIBS="$("${R_HOME}/bin/Rscript" --vanilla -e \
  "rvtk::LdFlagsFile('src/vtk_libs.rsp')")"
# VTK_LIBS is now the short string "@src/vtk_libs.rsp" on Windows,
# or the raw flags on macOS/Linux.

On Windows the flags are written to path and the function returns the ⁠@basename(path)⁠ token for the linker. On macOS and Linux, ld does not reliably support ⁠@file⁠ response files at the compiler-driver level, so no file is written and the raw flags are returned directly.

Value

Invisibly, the string to embed in configure (either ⁠@basename(path)⁠ on Windows or the raw flags on other platforms). The string is also written to stdout so that shell command substitution captures it.

Examples

rsp <- file.path(tempdir(), "vtk_libs.rsp")
ref <- LdFlagsFile(rsp)

VTK version used by this package

Description

VTK version used by this package

Usage

VtkVersion()

Value

A character string with the VTK version, e.g. "9.3.1".

Examples

VtkVersion()