Adding RenderWindowControl to tool box - vtk

Question

I am trying to use Kitware ActiViz.NET. I have installed it using nuget.
But I can't seem to find RenderWindowControl on the toolbox. I have been trying to add it manually this way:
invoke "Choose Items..."
and in the following dialog click on button "Browse...",
navigate to your ActiViz.NET installation folder, browse to /bin
folder, select "Kitware.VTK.dll".
Click OK.
Now you should see in your ToolBox a new control named RenderWindowControl.
But I get "The file "C:\programfiles\activiz.net 5.8.0 Opensource Eddition\bin\kitware.vtk.DLL" is not valid".
I have tried to add the control in the code rether than the designer,and got this exception:
Could not load file or assembly 'Kitware.VTK, Version=5.8.0.607, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=995c7fb9db2c1b44' or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format.
Has anyone had this problem before?
Any ideas?

Answer 1

For the design mode you would need to use the 32Bit version, because VS is running on 32Bit and can only load 32Bit controls.
So you could use for design time the 32Bit version and for build/release switch to the 64bit version.
But you can also add the RenderWindowControl manually.
Of course the designer will be unable to display this, so it would be
necessary to comment it out, before switching to the designer
Open your designer file e.g. Form1.Designer.cs and add the control like
private RenderWindowControl myRenderWindowControl;
private void InitalizeComponent()
{
//all other controls added by the designer
myRenderWindowControl = new RenderWindowControl();
myRenderWindowControl.SetBounds(0,0,640,480);
this.Controls.Add(this.myRenderWindowControl);
}

Answer 2

Adding VTK's RenderWindowControl to WPF is a little more complicated.
Assuming you installed a 64 bit VTK package, the following steps worked for me.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/wpf/advanced/walkthrough-hosting-a-windows-forms-control-in-wpf
Add Project References to WindowsFormsIntegration and System.Windows.Forms
Draw a Grid on the Designer Form.
In Properties Dialog, Give it a name, then
Double Click the Loaded event.
In the loaded event handler add the code.
// Create the interop host control.
System.Windows.Forms.Integration.WindowsFormsHost host =
new System.Windows.Forms.Integration.WindowsFormsHost();
myRenderWindowControl = new RenderWindowControl();
myRenderWindowControl.SetBounds(0, 0, 30, 30); // not too big in case it disappears.
// Assign the control as the host control's child.
host.Child = myRenderWindowControl;
this.VTKGrid.Children.Add(host);