2.1 - VR-Vantage Layers

The VR-Vantage Toolkit is a multilayered toolkit.

VR-Vantage has the following layers:

• The OpenGL Layer - The lowest layer is OpenGL, the standard low-level API supported by most graphics cards.
• The OpenSceneGraph Layer - On top of OpenGL sits OpenSceneGraph (OSG), an open-source C++ toolkit that helps organize 3D geometry into a "scene graph". It provides functions for traversing the graph and making the appropriate calls to OpenGL to render the scene. Additionally it handles data management, LOD management, file loaders, and other features. For complete information about OSG, please go to http://www.openscenegraph.org/projects/osg
• The Rendering System Layer - The classes at Rendering System Layer associate some semantics with the geometry. Instead of just thinking of 3D geometry as generic "nodes", the Toolkit supports application-level concepts like terrain, props, the environment, models, and scene objects. The rendering layer (DtRenderer) has an update() and render() method that it calls every tick to render frames.
• The Control Interface Layer - The Control Interface Layer provides agents, proxies, and higher-level objects that allow you to control objects in the Rendering System independently of whether they exist in your application or in a remote display engine. (This allows VR-Vantage applications to support multi-channel distributed-rendering).
• The Driver Layer - The driver layer is where your simulation and/or application logic goes. Drivers get information from the networked simulation or user and tell the Rendering System (through the Control Interface) what objects to create, where to place them, and how to display them.
• The GUI Layer - The GUI layer provides the graphical user interface for the application, including menus, toolbars, dialog boxes, and so on. It is based on the Qt Toolkit.
• The Application Layer - The application layer is a framework for a VR-Vantage application. The DtVrvApplication class reduces application development time by providing the basic building blocks of a VR-Vantage application, such as the display engine (DtDe) and Plug-in Manager (DtPluginManager).

We will now explore each layer in depth.

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