VC++ and OpenGL 3

Hi folks,

Just planning to start coding using Visual C++ 2008 for some graphics drawing on a small project, one of my hobbies actually. Got books about OpenGL programming guide, C++ programming and a few others.

The hardware is Intel Q6600 and ATI Raedon 4870 1GB, know it's not a top end setup but i just need it to do some static graphics objects so should be okay.


The OS is Vista, again know it's not the best OS out there but can't afford to upgrade at the moment so live with it.


Got a bit rusty on VC++ and my first time to use OpenGL, where do I download OpenGL and how do I call the various commands?

Appreciate for your help

VC++ installation contains Microsoft OpenGL implementation for Windows. You don't need to download anything, just start coding.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...=vs.85%29.aspx

Also, check out these resources:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/openGL/
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/openGL...AppWizard.aspx

Alex

I followed your pointers, found this one -> http://www.codeproject.com/KB/openGL...wWithGLUT.aspx

and it draws even though my VC++ is 2008 version.

I followed the setup instructions there which involves moving 3 files

glut32.dll -> C:\Windows\Systems32
glut32.lib -> C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\lib
glut32.h -> C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\include\gl

and it works!!!

So let me understand this correctly, wihtout glut32.h and glut32.lib, the VC++ compiler won't pass obviously. Without glut32.dll, the program won't run, am I correct?

Next question is what is the most current version of this glut32 set of files?

I thought ATI graphics driver comes with these OpenGL files, apparently it is not...

GLUT is not a part of OpenGL proper. It is a dead-simple windowing environment which is often used for "My first OpenGL program" purposes. Just about any windowing environment can be used for OpenGL if you prefer (MFC, GTK+, QT, etc).

http://www.opengl.org/resources/libraries/glut/
http://www.opengl.org/resources/libr...indowtoolkits/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lindley

GLUT is not a part of OpenGL proper. It is a dead-simple windowing environment which is often used for "My first OpenGL program" purposes. Just about any windowing environment can be used for OpenGL if you prefer (MFC, GTK+, QT, etc).

http://www.opengl.org/resources/libraries/glut/
http://www.opengl.org/resources/libr...indowtoolkits/

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I am working on a Ray Tracing project, last time I did it was in Pascal back in 1988 using Whitted algorithm. I know it has been a while back. Now I want to do it again with a new language which I've chosen Visual C++.

I am new to all these and I want to set up a proper environment so that I can use C++ to implement the algorithm, and OpenGL to draw objects.

Any pointers will be highly appreciated.
THANKS!

Just to learn OpenGL, without wasting time on Win32 programming, MFC and any other UI framework, you can use GLUT.
To make a real program, you need to decide which UI framework you want to use: Win32 API, MFC, Qt, .NET etc. Then look for OpenGL resources for selected environment.
For MFC, there are ready for use Application Wizards, which create basic MFC program with OpenGL support. You can see the link to one of them in my previous post.

OpenGL may not be ideally suited to ray tracing, unless you're specifically attempting to do ray tracing on the GPU (which is a relatively new area of research made possibly by recent GPGPU language developments). For standard ray tracing algorithms, the only thing you need the GPU to do is display the computed image; most computation, particularly for student projects, will be done on the CPU. Simply displaying an image can be done much more easily with something like HighGUI than via GLUT/OpenGL.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lindley

OpenGL may not be ideally suited to ray tracing, unless you're specifically attempting to do ray tracing on the GPU (which is a relatively new area of research made possibly by recent GPGPU language developments). For standard ray tracing algorithms, the only thing you need the GPU to do is display the computed image; most computation, particularly for student projects, will be done on the CPU. Simply displaying an image can be done much more easily with something like HighGUI than via GLUT/OpenGL.

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You're probably right. Just a student project, difference being an Apollo workstation in 1988 and now we're talking about a PC with a faster GPU.

I also want to take this chance to learn translating the algorithm and the mathematics into codings, as to what type of codings I really not quite sure which is the best between C++ and Java, because I also heard that Java can do 3D graphics.

I agree that most of the computational work will be coded in either C++/OpenGL or Java/Java3D, and the display work will be done by the GPU.

I also want to avoid Win32 API and .NET because they are new to me, last time I did programming on the job was 15 years ago with C, Oracle and Unix scripts LOL

What you advise me to do if openGL is too much for ray Tracing?Thanks~!!!

It's not that OpenGL is too much for ray tracing; it's just that the type of computation it's good at isn't exactly the same as the type of computation needed for ray tracing.

The first ray is simple enough; in fact, that's just a plain old OpenGL render. The problem comes when you try to incorporate shadow rays, reflection rays, transmission rays, etc. It's possible to do these on the GPU; in fact, if you use a shader language like OpenCL or CUDA, it's not even particularly strenuous. But entry-level OpenGL won't do it easily.

AFAIK, we are talking about GPU programming, shaders and OpenCL when we need to get very high performance. If we just need to make work done (I guess this is the case), it is OK to make all computations in CPU and use plain OpenGL rendering.
I suggest to use GLUT to get some results. Later, if you make your program look professional, think about some UI framework.