Promoting IceT module to its own independent Module

Development
1

Hi everyone,
I’m a VTK user and I wanted to use IceT when I noticed that ParaView already uses this. But I do not want to depend on entire ParaView because of that.

I noticed also there were plans to move IceT submodule to VTK:
https://vtk.org/Wiki/Multiple_views
https://vtk.org/Wiki/VTK/MultiPass_Rendering_With_IceT

I already asked this in VTK discourse, to integrate this into VTK finally, but they want to keep VTK as minimalistic as they can. Check this:
https://discourse.vtk.org/t/deadline-for-vtk-9-1-rc1-merge-requests-october-29-2020/3206/4?u=psandana

Understanding that position, I think it would be smart to make a vtkIceT module, outside of VTK and Paraview. Then, vtkIceT should depend on VTK, but not Paraview. Then Paraview should depend on this submodule and use it on the Superbuild as it is using VTK.

What do you think about this? How can I start such module so we can keep it in sync with VTK and Paraview?

Suggestions are more than welcome if you have ideas to share :wink:

Regards,
Pato

2

@ben.boeckel any thoughts on this?

3

I’m fine with this, but I’m not all that familiar with IceT beyond “it’s in ParaView”. @utkarsh.ayachit?

4

I had no time to accomplish this yet, but it is used for distributed pipelines and rendering. It should be more tight to vtk, but it was already claimed that vtk should be free of “add-ons” to keep vtk core clean.
These vtkIce* classes are actually only dependent in vtk code and iceT. No Paraview dependencies .

5

Well, unfortunately, the realities mean that anything ParaView wants that uses VTK must be in VTK or ParaView, so I’d be fine with moving it down to VTK. I think it’d be another submodule like it is in ParaView already.