VTK/Examples/Cxx/IO/WritePLY

Note: Unlike vtkPolyDataXMLWriter and most other VTK writers, to write colors to the .ply file you must specify to the vtkPLYWriter:

 plyWriter->SetArrayName("Colors");

where your color array was created/named like this:

 vtkSmartPointer<vtkUnsignedCharArray> colors =
   vtkSmartPointer<vtkUnsignedCharArray>::New();
 colors->SetNumberOfComponents(3);
 colors->SetName("Colors");

(This was found in response to a user question on StackOverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17783612/save-mesh-with-rgb-in-vtk/19525938)

WritePLY.cxx

#include <vtkPolyData.h>
#include <vtkPLYWriter.h>
#include <vtkPLYReader.h>
#include <vtkSmartPointer.h>
#include <vtkSphereSource.h>
#include <vtkPolyDataMapper.h>
#include <vtkActor.h>
#include <vtkRenderWindow.h>
#include <vtkRenderer.h>
#include <vtkRenderWindowInteractor.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
  if(argc != 2)
    {
    std::cout << "Required parameters: filename.ply" << std::endl;
    return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

  std::string filename = argv[1];

  vtkSmartPointer<vtkSphereSource> sphereSource =
    vtkSmartPointer<vtkSphereSource>::New();
  sphereSource->Update();
  
  vtkSmartPointer<vtkPLYWriter> plyWriter =
    vtkSmartPointer<vtkPLYWriter>::New();
  plyWriter->SetFileName(filename.c_str());
  plyWriter->SetInputConnection(sphereSource->GetOutputPort());
  plyWriter->Write();

  // Read and display for verification
  vtkSmartPointer<vtkPLYReader> reader =
    vtkSmartPointer<vtkPLYReader>::New();
  reader->SetFileName(filename.c_str());
  reader->Update();
  
  vtkSmartPointer<vtkPolyDataMapper> mapper =
    vtkSmartPointer<vtkPolyDataMapper>::New();
  mapper->SetInputConnection(reader->GetOutputPort());

  vtkSmartPointer<vtkActor> actor =
    vtkSmartPointer<vtkActor>::New();
  actor->SetMapper(mapper);

  vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderer> renderer =
    vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderer>::New();
  vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderWindow> renderWindow =
    vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderWindow>::New();
  renderWindow->AddRenderer(renderer);
  vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderWindowInteractor> renderWindowInteractor =
    vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderWindowInteractor>::New();
  renderWindowInteractor->SetRenderWindow(renderWindow);

  renderer->AddActor(actor);
  renderer->SetBackground(.3, .6, .3); // Background color green

  renderWindow->Render();
  renderWindowInteractor->Start();
  
  return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Please try the new VTKExamples website.

CMakeLists.txt

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8)

PROJECT(WritePLY)

find_package(VTK REQUIRED)
include(${VTK_USE_FILE})

add_executable(WritePLY MACOSX_BUNDLE WritePLY.cxx)

if(VTK_LIBRARIES)
  target_link_libraries(WritePLY ${VTK_LIBRARIES})
else()
  target_link_libraries(WritePLY vtkHybrid vtkWidgets)
endif()

Download and Build WritePLY

Click here to download WritePLY. and its CMakeLists.txt file.

Once the tarball WritePLY.tar has been downloaded and extracted,

cd WritePLY/build 

• If VTK is installed:

cmake ..

• If VTK is not installed but compiled on your system, you will need to specify the path to your VTK build:

cmake -DVTK_DIR:PATH=/home/me/vtk_build ..

Build the project:

make

and run it:

./WritePLY

WINDOWS USERS PLEASE NOTE: Be sure to add the VTK bin directory to your path. This will resolve the VTK dll's at run time.