These programs show complete sample programs for using Modern OpenGL. They are prepared for use with a planned second edition of the book 3D Computer Graphics: A mathematical approach with OpenGL, by Sam Buss, Cambridge University Press, 2003. The main web page for the second edition is available here. Some of these programs are based on older legacy OpenGL programs which were written for the first edition of the book.

These programs are still UNDER DEVELOPMENT. Corrections or improvements (minor and major) will be very much welcomed!

Some programs are supplied with Visual Studio 2015 project and workspace files; however, the source files should work with other compilers and on other systems as well. You will need to have OpenGL, GLFW, and GLEW installed: namely, the header files to compile programs and the object libraries to link and run the programs. See below for more on obtaining GLFW and GLEW.

I. Getting started with basic features.

  1. SimpleDrawModern shows how to draw points, lines, line strips, line loops, and triangles. It includes simple vertex and fragment shaders. It accepts keyboard inputs to update the scene.
  2. SimpleAnimModern shows how to draw triangles, triangle strips, and triangle fans; how to use an orthographic projection matrix, how to use model view matrices, and to do a simple rotational animation.
  3. SolarModern animates a simple solar system with a sun, an earth and a moon. It uses a perspective projection matrix and implements a hierarchical use of modelview matrices. It contains simple animation controls. It uses GlLinearMath for the math needed for the animation, and uses GlGeomSphere to render spheres (see GlLinearMath and GlGeomShapes below).
  4. SimpleDrawShaderMgr is a "re-do" of SimpleAnimModern, but now loading the shaders's source code from a GLSL file using the GlShaderMgr class (see below).
  5. BasicDrawModes illustrates drawing multiple triangle strips in four of the basic drawing modes for OpenGL: glDrawArrays, glDrawElements, glMultiDrawElements, and glDrawElements with Primitive Restart.
  6. ConnectDotsModern illustrates detecting mouse clicks, tracking the mouse position, and drawing straight-line segments joining points.

II. Utilities and helper classes

  1. GlLinearMath. C++ classes for vectors, matrices, quaternions, and miscellaneous math functions.
  2. GlShaderMgr. C++ classes for reading GLSL shader programs from files and for compiling and linking them.
  3. GlGeomShapes. C++ classes encapsulating some simple geometric shapes. So far, spheres, cylinders and tori are available. (UNDER FURTHER DEVELOPMENT)
  4. EduPhong is C++ code plus GLSL shader programs for Phong lighting. This allows exploring writing code with Phong lighting, combined with Gouraud or Phong shading. It also allows using a texture map.
  5. RgbImage. A C++ class for reading and writing textures to and from bitmap (.bmp) files.

III. Programs with more complex shaders and more advanced OpenGL features

  1. SimpleLightModern illustrates both Phong lighting with Gouraud shading and Phong lighting with Phong shading. Allows several viewing options, including seeing the different light components separately. Uses the GlShaderMgr class to load shaders formed from more than one code block.
  2. TextureBmpModern illustrates a simple case of how to use a single texture map.
  3. FourTexturesModern illustrates how to use four texture maps at once. It also illustrates how to use glDrawElementsBaseVertex.
  4. GammaCorrectTest illustrates both gamma correction and linear-to-sRGB coding. In gamma correction mode, you can interactively modify the gamma value by dragging with the mouse.
  5. SimpleGeometryShader shows a couple basic geometry shaders acting on triangles. One geometry shader grows the size of a triangle on the screen. A second geometry shader tessellates a triangle into three subtriangles.
  6. ParticlesTransformFeedback implements a simple particle system using Transform Feedback to update all particle positions and velocities on the GPU. This shows how to generate data on the GPU, for rendering in the next cycle without bringing the data back to the CPU. The physics simulation uses a central gravitational force tracking the mouse position, with an Euler-Cromer update. (See also the Chap1TransformFeedback program below.)
  7. GlGeomShapesTester is tester code used for developing GlGeomShapes. It includes examples of how to handle multiple files and multiple shaders with GlShaderMgr. It includes a shader program that draws normals as short vectors. It also includes a simple procedural shader program that forms a "speckled F" pattern.

IV. Miscellaneous programs

  1. Chapter1Figs includes the sample C++ and GLSL shader code from Chapter 1, including code that renders many of the figures in that chapter. It illustrates different rendering modes for lines and triangles, vertex and fragment shaders, and the use of the GlShaderMgr class.
  2. Chap1TransformFeedback illustrates the use of Transform Feedback to generate data with geometry shader (on the GPU) and transfer it back to the C++ program to use on the CPU. This program was used to help generate a couple of the figures in Chapter 1. (See also the ParticlesTransformFeedback program above.)
  3. NoPerspective illustrates the use of the "noperspective" qualifier. This shows rather dramatically why hyperbolic interpolation is used by default in graphics rendering.

Building C++/OpenGL programs. If you have a compiler installed on your computer, it very likely comes with the needed OpenGL headers and libraries, but you still need the GLFW and GLEW headers and libraries. GLFW provides a platform-independent (more-or-less) interface to OpenGL so that the same code can be used for different operating systems, including Windows, Macs, and Linux. GLEW is the "OpenGL Extension Wrangler Library": it tracks which features ("extensions") of OpenGL are available in your computer system, and simplifies the interface to OpenGL.

Obtaining GLFW. GLFW files are available from http://www.glfw.org. For Windows machines, the header files and binary files (library files) are available for direct download, by clicking on the "Download" header on that web page. After you obtain the header files (.h) and the Windows library files (.lib), install them on your system (as administrator) in the same location as GL/glu.h and glu32.lib. Installing the .dll files should not be necessary, as it is recommended to use static linkage. If you do not have administrator privileges, you may instead store the files locally.
For non-Windows machines, you will need to compile GLFW from its source code: this is also available at http://www.glfw.org/ along with CMake files.
If you compile and link with makefiles instead of using Visual Studio projects, you may wish to remove the #pragma commands in the .cpp files.

Obtaining GLEW. GLEW files are available from http://glew.sourceforge.net. Installation directions are the same as for GLFW above.

Acknowledgements: I initially started learning Modern OpenGL primarily from the OpenGL Programming Guide, Ninth Edition (Kindle version), and the Learn OpenGL website by Joey de Vries. Books on Modern OpenGL include the OpenGL Programming Guide and the OpenGL Super Bible; if you get one, be sure it is for OpenGL 4.3 or later. The LearnOpenGL website also provides a PDF version of itself available for download as a complete online book. For somewhat denser reading, the official specification of OpenGL 4.5 is available online at https://www.khronos.org/registry/OpenGL/specs/gl/glspec45.core.pdf.