How to close VTKRenderWindow automatically - c++

Question

I am using some simple code to render a mesh in a loop. In practice on each iteration I will change the viewpoint and save an image of the rendering. I have reduced this to a small compilable example below:
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
vtkSmartPointer<vtkPLYReader> fileReader = vtkSmartPointer<vtkPLYReader>::New();
fileReader->SetFileName("benchvise_mesh.ply");
fileReader->Update();
vtkSmartPointer<vtkPolyData> polydata_ = fileReader->GetOutput();
vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderWindow> render_win = vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderWindow>::New();
vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderer> renderer = vtkSmartPointer<vtkRenderer>::New();
vtkSmartPointer<vtkActor> actor_view = vtkSmartPointer<vtkActor>::New();
vtkSmartPointer<vtkCamera> cam = vtkSmartPointer<vtkCamera>::New();
vtkSmartPointer<vtkPolyDataMapper> mapper = vtkSmartPointer<vtkPolyDataMapper>::New();
for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
mapper->SetInput(polydata_);
mapper->Update();
cam->SetViewAngle(58);
cam->SetClippingRange(0.00001, 10000);
//Invert view Up
cam->SetViewUp(0, -1, 0);
cam->SetPosition(0, 0, -500);
cam->SetFocalPoint(0, 0, 1);
cam->Modified();
actor_view->SetMapper(mapper);
actor_view->Modified();
renderer->SetActiveCamera(cam);
renderer->AddActor(actor_view);
renderer->SetBackground(1.0, 1.0, 1.0);
renderer->Modified();
render_win->AddRenderer(renderer);
render_win->SetSize(640, 480);
//white
render_win->Modified();
render_win->Start();
render_win->Render();
render_win->Finalize();
}
}
The problem is, when I run this many vtkWindow icons appear on my taskbar and eventually bring the pc to a halt. It appears as though on each loop the rendering window stays alive. However, when I click on an icon the window doesn't actually appear.
Is there something I am missing that will clean up the render windows on each iteration.
BTW, I am running under Ubntu with vtk 5.8

Answer 1

You do several things 'wrong' there. Remove everything wrong the loop, most importantly render_win->Start(), initialize at begin and just call render_win->Render() at each loop after the appreciated modifications to viewing has been made ( calls to mappers or cameras SetPosition and similars affect your view without reconnection, reconnection being call to Add????() -methods). Modified() calls should be implicit and not required manually.