Re: [Mesa3d-users] Help in basics of Mesa/OpenGL

[physic <ph...@te...>]

> The question is about architecture of OpenGL.
> 
> The libraries - libGL, libGLU, libGLUT, libGLX.

- libGL are the OpenGL core functions.  This is mostly what ones
uses in a accelerated 3d app.

- libGLU is a utility library defined by the opengl people.  Pretty
much every opengl implemention has it.  it just calls the functions
in libGL.  these routines are generally slow and shouldnt be put into
a time critical loop.

- libGLUT is an opengl graphical programming toolkit originally designed
by Mark Kilgard (now at nVidia) and has proved very used for demoing
OpenGL functionality because it hides the native windowing code.

- libGLX doesnt exist.  the GLX function are the routines that integrate
opengl into an X windows system.  these routines are generally in libGL
for that platform I think.  WGL is the microsodt windows alternative.

> 2) We need to make industrial (mining & geology) 3d-modelling software
>  (under QPL or GNU GPL). What combination of
>  <GUI API>+<3D high-level library> you can advice me to make our software
>  better and faster? (We plan to use Mesa as an OpenGL API).

Assuming you are using unix/linux, there are lots of choices.  Qt are Gtk
are both pretty feature right and more or less complete.  Certainly they
will work fine to wrap your 3d window.  As long as you are programming
your 3d stuff with the opengl spec then Mesa or any opengl library that
implements the spec will work with your program.

> Igor Evdokimov

--physic
ph...@te...