[wplug] OpenGL

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 13:27 -0400, Michael H. Semcheski wrote:
> My application involves drawing hundreds of small 3d objects, and
> viewing them from different perspectives (ie, rotating and translating
> them).

Hello World OpenGL.  ;)

> This is a "strawman" application.  Do it quick and dirty the first
> time.  In the next iteration, I'll do it right.

SDL really isn't so much about "doing it right."

It actually and often makes things easier, especially when you start
adding user interaction and additional input/output.  OpenGL only
handles so much, and that's where SDL comes in.  It handles the framing,
control, etc... built around OpenGL.  I.e., not exactly a 1-to-1
correlation, but "SDL" is to "DirectX" as "OpenGL" is to "Direct3D."

The nice "side effect" is that writing to SDL makes it easy to get the
application running on a Windows system, as SDL almost directly
leverages DirectX (typically version DX7/8 API calls).

> But, I want to get the basics of the UI working and let the users
> see what this looks like in action.

Which is why you should look at complementing OpenGL with SDL.

> I've already got the application working, with an OpenGL panel and
> a few objects, and this is not the time to change the underlying
> architecture.

Oh, so you are already leveraging GLUT?


-- 
Bryan J. Smith         Professional, Technical Annoyance
mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org   http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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