Hi,it seems that the vtk6 transition can now be properly prepared. I found out that the latest version of libgdal-dev available from 'experimental' is what we actually need.
I'd promise to work on this, but for the next two weeks I'm mostly off-line. After this I'll happily step up, also to add and test all the patches that are available for vtk6.
It was nice meeting some of you in person :) Best wishes, Gert