aarch64 support

[odidev]

VTK installation using pip on aarch64 machine fails with below issue:

pip3 install vtk       
Collecting vtk
  Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement vtk (from versions: )
No matching distribution found for vtk

[jcfr]

Thanks for the report, this is related to the discussion here:

• Installing cmake on aarch64 using pip via wheel scikit-build/cmake-python-distributions#96
• https://gitlab.kitware.com/vtk/vtk/-/merge_requests/5543

A first step would be to try to build and test VTK on aarch64. Did you have any success doing so ?

[odidev]

@jcfr , I have build the VTK wheel on aarch64 architecture but not sure how to test it. Can you please help me here?

[odidev]

@jcfr is there anything else required from my side.

[thewtex]

@odidev if you built the wheel, you can just run python -m pip install /path/to/vtk-xyz.whl to install it.

@martinken @tjcorona @mathstuf

[mathstuf]

I doubt we're going to be able to provide aarch64 wheels as long as we lack hardware for testing and building them regularly.

[jcfr]

I have build the VTK wheel on aarch64 architecture but not sure how to test it. Can you please help me here?

is there anything else required from my side.

@odidev This is exciting and thanks for sharing updates and thanks for your patience 🙏

As @mathstuf mentioned, we do not have the infrastructure to test here but we shouldn't let that stop us from having wheels for aarch64. I am sure we could find community members willing to help support this.

Now, would you like to document the steps used to build the VTK wheel ?

Also, since the process to build the wheel has been completely revamped (see here), would be great to try these.

[odidev]

@jcfr, I explored the link
(https://gitlab.kitware.com/vtk/vtk/-/blob/master/Documentation/dev/build.md#python-wheels) suggested by you. Please find below steps to build VTK aarch64 wheel.

Steps to build aarch64 wheel

• apt install -y build-essential mesa-common-dev mesa-utils freeglut3-dev ninja-build git cmake

• git clone --recursive https://gitlab.kitware.com/vtk/vtk.git

• mkdir build

• cd build

• cmake -GNinja -DVTK_WHEEL_BUILD=ON -DVTK_WRAP_PYTHON=ON ../vtk/

• ninja

• python setup.py bdist_wheel

Installation/import logs

root@b605f0ff0d7c:~# pip install /build/dist/vtk-9.0.0-cp37-cp37m-linux_aarch64.whl 
Processing /build/dist/vtk-9.0.0-cp37-cp37m-linux_aarch64.whl
Installing collected packages: vtk
Successfully installed vtk-9.0.0
root@b605f0ff0d7c:~# python
Python 3.7.7 (default, Apr 21 2020, 08:59:39) 
[GCC 8.3.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import vtk
>>> print(vtk.vtkVersion.GetVTKSourceVersion())
vtk version 9.0.0
>>> 

[odidev]

@jcfr, can you please let me know if I can help with anything else.

[mathstuf]

We don't do aarch64 testing of the codebase, so without that, I'm hesitant to make official releases of builds. Is there some way to mark uploads to PyPI as experimental or the like (not per-version, but per artifact)?

[rhenwood-arm]

@mathstuf - thanks for this. I work with @odidev on the AArch64 enablement. I think your asking about marking the aarch64 wheel as experimental in PyPI - something that I don't believe is supported.

We may be able to help by adding some automatic testing. As a simple end-to-end case, I guess running something like https://vtk.org/Wiki/VTK/Examples/Python/Cylinder with xvfb and comparing the result to a known good rendering would be a start. Would that provide sufficient confidence to move forward with an AArch64 wheel?

[mathstuf]

I'd like a full test suite run on aarch64 (with Python enaled). This would be a normal (non-wheel) build of VTK since our wheel build configuration doesn't work with the test suite (due to the library relocations). You should be able to submit a run to our CDash with ctest -D Experimental once VTK is configured. You can also run the steps individually, but the CTest docs are better for that. A CTest script may also be more reproducible if it isn't just a simple run.

[rhenwood-arm]

Thanks for this @mathstuf, I'll work with @odidev to look into this.

[odidev]

Hi @mathstuf, I tried running tests but it looks like the tests are not getting picked up. Please find below steps which I followed to run the tests. Also, can you please point it out if I am missing anything here?

Steps to build vtk

• apt install -y build-essential mesa-common-dev mesa-utils freeglut3-dev ninja-build git cmake
• git clone --recursive https://gitlab.kitware.com/vtk/vtk.git
• mkdir build
• cd build
• cmake -GNinja -DVTK_WRAP_PYTHON=ON ../vtk/ # Non-wheel, python enabled build
• ninja

Running ctest

root@fc2408cb3eaa:~/build# ctest -D Experimental
   Site: fc2408cb3eaa
   Build name: Linux-c++
Create new tag: 20200609-1139 - Experimental
Configure project
   Each . represents 1024 bytes of output
    . Size of output: 0K
Build project
   Each symbol represents 1024 bytes of output.
   '!' represents an error and '*' a warning.
    . Size of output: 0K
   0 Compiler errors
   0 Compiler warnings
Test project /root/build
No tests were found!!!
Performing coverage
 Cannot find any coverage files. Ignoring Coverage request.
Submit files
   SubmitURL: http://open.cdash.org/submit.php?project=VTK
   Uploaded: /root/build/Testing/20200609-1139/Configure.xml
   Uploaded: /root/build/Testing/20200609-1139/Build.xml
   Uploaded: /root/build/Testing/20200609-1139/Test.xml
   Uploaded: /root/build/Testing/20200609-1139/Done.xml
   Submission successful
root@fc2408cb3eaa:~/build#