Introduction to OpenGL

Acknowledgements
Most of the material for the slides were adapted from
E. Angel, Interactive Computer Graphics, 4th edition

Some of the images were taken from

F.S.Hill, Computer Graphics using OpenGL Hearn, Baker, and Carithers, Computer Graphics with OpenGL

Other resources
http://www.lighthouse3d.com/opengl/glut/ Jackie Neider, Tom Davis, and Mason Woo, The OpenGL Programming Guide (The Red Book)

The Programmers Interface

Programmer sees the graphics system through a software interface: the Application Programmer Interface (API)

API Contents
Functions that specify what we need to form an image
Objects Viewer Light Source(s) Materials

Other information
Input from devices such as mouse and keyboard Capabilities of system

History of OpenGL
Silicon Graphics (SGI) revolutionized the graphics workstation by implementing the pipeline in hardware (1982) To access the system, application programmers used a library called GL With GL, it was relatively simple to program three dimensional interactive applications

OpenGL: What is It?

The success of GL lead to OpenGL (1992), a platform-independent API that was
Easy to use Close enough to the hardware to get excellent performance Focus on rendering Omitted windowing and input to avoid window system dependencies

OpenGL Evolution
Controlled by an Architectural Review Board (ARB)
Members include SGI, Microsoft, Nvidia, HP, 3DLabs, IBM,. Relatively stable (present version 3.0)
Evolution reflects new hardware capabilities
3D texture mapping and texture objects Vertex programs

Allows for platform specific features through extensions

OpenGL Libraries
GL (Graphics Library): Library of 2-D, 3-D drawing primitives and operations
API for 3-D hardware acceleration

GLU (GL Utilities): Miscellaneous functions dealing with camera set-up and higher-level shape descriptions GLUT (GL Utility Toolkit): Window-system independent toolkit with numerous utility functions, mostly dealing with user interface

Software Organization
application program
OpenGL Motif widget or similar

GLUT GLU GL

GLX, AGL or WGL

X, Win32, Mac O/S

software and/or hardware

Lack of Object Orientation

OpenGL is not object oriented so that there are multiple functions for a given logical function
glVertex3f glVertex2i glVertex3dv

Underlying storage mode is the same Easy to create overloaded functions in C++ but issue is efficiency

OpenGL function format

function name glVertex3f(x,y,z) belongs to GL library x,y,z are floats dimensions

glVertex3fv(p) p is a pointer to an array

simple.c
#include <GL/glut.h> void mydisplay(){ glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); glBegin(GL_POLYGON); glVertex2f(-0.5, -0.5); glVertex2f(-0.5, 0.5); glVertex2f(0.5, 0.5); glVertex2f(0.5, -0.5); glEnd(); glFlush(); } int main(int argc, char** argv){ glutCreateWindow("simple"); glutDisplayFunc(mydisplay); glutMainLoop(); }

Event Loop
Note that the program defines a display callback function named mydisplay
Every glut program must have a display callback The display callback is executed whenever OpenGL decides the display must be refreshed, for example when the window is opened The main function ends with the program entering an event loop

Default parameters
simple.c is too simple Makes heavy use of state variable default values for
Viewing Colors Window parameters

OpenGL Camera
Right-handed system From point of view of camera looking out into scene:
OpenGL places a camera at the origin in object space pointing in the negative z direction

Positive rotations are counterclockwise around axis of rotation

Coordinate Systems
The units in glVertex are determined by the application and are called object or problem coordinates The viewing specifications are also in object coordinates and it is the size of the viewing volume that determines what will appear in the image Internally, OpenGL will convert to camera (eye) coordinates and later to screen coordinates

Transformations in OpenGl
Modeling transformation
Refer to the transformation of models (i.e., the scenes, or objects)

Viewing transformation
Refer to the transformation on the camera

Projection transformation
Refer to the transformation from scene to image

Model/View Transformations
Model-view transformations are usually visualized as a single entity
Before applying modeling or viewing transformations, need to set glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW) Modeling transforms the object
Translation: Scale: Rotation: glTranslate(x,y,z) glScale(sx,sy,sz) glRotate(theta, x,y,z)

Viewing transfers the object into camera coordinates

gluLookAt (eyeX, eyeY, eyeZ, centerX, centerY, centerZ, upX, upY, upZ)

Model/View transformation

Courtesy: Neider, Davis and Woo, The OpenGL Programming Guide

Projection Transformation
Transformation of the 3D scene into the 2D rendered image plane
Before applying projection transformations, need to set glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION) Orthographic projection
glOrtho(left, right, bottom, top, near, far)

Perspective projection
glFrustum (left, right, bottom, top, near, far)

Projection Transformation
Orthographic projection

Perspective projection

F.S.Hill, Computer Graphics using OpenGL

Program Structure
Most OpenGL programs have the following structure
main():
defines the callback functions opens one or more windows with the required properties enters event loop (last executable statement)

init(): sets the state variables

Viewing Attributes

callbacks
Display function Input and window functions

simple.c revisited
#include <GL/glut.h> int main(int argc, char** argv) { glutInit(&argc,argv); glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_SINGLE|GLUT_RGB); glutInitWindowSize(500,500); glutInitWindowPosition(0,0); glutCreateWindow("simple"); glutDisplayFunc(mydisplay); define window init(); glutMainLoop(); }

includes gl.h

properties

display callback set OpenGL state enter event loop

GLUT functions
glutInit allows application to get command line arguments and initializes system gluInitDisplayMode requests properties for the window (the rendering context)
RGB color Single buffering Properties logically ORed together

glutWindowSize in pixels glutWindowPosition from top-left corner of display glutCreateWindow create window with title simple glutDisplayFunc display callback glutMainLoop enter infinite event loop

Window Initialization
black clear void init() { glClearColor (0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0);
glColor3f(1.0, 1.0, 1.0); glMatrixMode (GL_PROJECTION); glLoadIdentity (); glOrtho(-1.0, 1.0, -1.0, 1.0, -1.0, 1.0); }

color opaque window

fill/draw with white

viewing volume

Display callback function

void mydisplay() { glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); glBegin(GL_POLYGON); glVertex2f(-0.5, -0.5); glVertex2f(-0.5, 0.5); glVertex2f(0.5, 0.5); glVertex2f(0.5, -0.5); glEnd(); glFlush(); }

Input and Interaction

Multiple input devices, each of which can send a trigger to the operating system at an arbitrary time by a user
Button on mouse Pressing or releasing a key

Each trigger generates an event whose measure is put in an event queue which can be examined by the user program

Callbacks
Programming interface for event-driven input Define a callback function for each type of event the graphics system recognizes This user-supplied function is executed when the event occurs
GLUT example: glutMouseFunc(mymouse)
mouse callback function

GLUT event loop

Last line in main.c for a program using GLUT is the infinite event loop glutMainLoop(); In each pass through the event loop, GLUT
looks at the events in the queue for each event in the queue, GLUT executes the appropriate callback function if one is defined if no callback is defined for the event, the event is ignored

In main.c
glutDisplayFunc(mydisplay) identifies the function to be executed Every GLUT program must have a display callback

Posting redisplays
Many events may invoke the display callback function
Can lead to multiple executions of the display callback on a single pass through the event loop

We can avoid this problem by instead using glutPostRedisplay(); which sets a flag. GLUT checks to see if the flag is set at the end of the event loop
If set then the display callback function is executed

Double Buffering
Instead of one color buffer, we use two
Front Buffer: one that is displayed but not written to Back Buffer: one that is written to but not displayed

Program then requests a double buffer in main.c

glutInitDisplayMode(GL_RGB | GL_DOUBLE) At the end of the display callback buffers are swapped
void mydisplay() { glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT|.) . /* draw graphics here */ . glutSwapBuffers() }

Using the idle callback

The idle callback is executed whenever there are no events in the event queue glutIdleFunc(myidle) Useful for animations
void myidle() { /* change something */ t += dt glutPostRedisplay(); } Void mydisplay() { glClear(); /* draw something that depends on t */ glutSwapBuffers(); }

Using globals
The form of all GLUT callbacks is fixed
void mydisplay() void mymouse(GLint button, GLint state, GLint x, GLint y)

Must use globals to pass information to callbacks

float t; /*global */ void mydisplay() { /* draw something that depends on t }

Other important functions

glPushMatrix() / glPopMatrix()
Pushes/pops the transformation matrix onto the matrix stack

glLoadIdentity(), glLoadMatrix(), glMultMatrix()

Pushes the matrix onto the matrix stack

Chapter 3 of the Red Book gives a detailed explanation of transformations

Jackie Neider, Tom Davis, and Mason Woo, The OpenGL Programming Guide (The Red Book)