OpenGL - Part I

Notes

Onscreen

Print

Here is an overview of OpenGL.

References

opengl.org: spec, API documentation, language bindings, links to tutorials

NeHe: tutorials, articles

Historical footnotes

Fahrenheit (SGI+Microsoft): http://news.cnet.com/SGI,-MS-read-Fahrenheit-by-2000/2100-1001_3-206431.html

SGI's NT hardware: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Visual_Workstation

SGI's miscalculations: http://news.cnet.com/Several-factors-led-to-SGI-decline/2100-1001_3-204826.html

Compiling and running OpenGL programs

There is not much you need to do in order to be able to compile/run OpenGL code on a modern PC or a Mac, since these OSs come pre-installed with OpenGL. That said, here are pointers to some details.

PC

On PCs, you can use Visual Studio or comparable IDEs to compile your code. Here are some useful links:

OpenGL on a PC

OpenGL with Visual Studio .NET

Moves Institute: OpenGL on a PC

Alternately you can use Cygwin's 'bash' shell to do the compilation yourself:

Mac

This link has more info.

Sun (eg. 'aludra')

The following snapshots show to compile on aludra/almaak, using a 'makefile' such as this:

CC = g++

XLIBS = -L/usr/usc/lib/X11R5 -LXext -lXmu -lXi -lX11

GLLIBS = -lGL -lGLU -lglut -L/usr/usc/glut/3.5/lib/glut

GLINC = -I/usr/usc/glut/3.5/include

LIBS = -L/usr/lib -L/usr/local/lib

all:
	$(CC) simple2.c -O3 -o simple2 $(XLIBS) $(GLLIBS) $(GLINC) $(LIBS)