3.2 - The OpenGL Layer

Table of Contents

• 3.2.1 OpenGL Examples

At the lowest level, VR-Vantage relies on OpenGL to draw pixels on the screen.

It will be rare for a VR-Vantage Toolkit user to have to program at this level however in explaining the various layers in VR-Vantage it helps to start at the bottom.

OpenGL is an industry standard environment for developing 2D and 3D graphics applications. OpenGL is available on many different platforms and is actively supported by the leading graphics vendors. In most cases OpenGL is an API for controlling the functions of a graphics rendering architecture. While this architecture can be implemented using software executed by the CPU, it is more common that dedicated graphics hardware is used to accelerate these functions. VR-Vantage takes advantage of the latest capabilities of modern graphics hardware and they are required by most rendering features. OpenGL is a functional API specification typically used by the C language and languages which can interoperate with C.

3.2.1 OpenGL Examples

We provide a few basic OpenGL examples for curious users to explore if they wish. Feel free to skip those and jump right to the next chapter on the OpenSceneGraph Layer.

	exampleOpenGLSimple - Shows how to create a simple OpenGL application that renders a cube with lighting.
	exampleOpenGLTransforms - Shows how to create a simple OpenGL application that transforms several geometry objects.

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