3D view airplane is hidden
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I have troubles viewing airplane in 3D view. Problem appears in all computers with Intel Q45 chipset (with graphics accelerator) - computers are 9 years old. Viewing the wing in Plane/edit is OK, but viewing the whole airplane in 3D view is problem. I see only outline with black fill - no surface, no pannels, and sometime no axes.
In version 6.32 I was able to make it work by turning Lights off (3D light options), and by turnix Axes off. Then I can see panels, surfaces and outlines as I wish. However from versions 6.33 to version 6.39 this trick doesn't work. What is difference between 3D view of airplane (in Wing and Plane design mode) and 3D preview in Wing editor (Plane/Edit/Main Wing/Define)? 3D preview of Wing works smoothly in all versions.
There is no difference in the methods which implement the display of the geometry, i.e. surface & outline. The mesh is implemented in a different way.
I am not sure I can do something about it, but nonetheless, can you test your OpenGL environment in the '?' menu? I'm interested to know the response to a request for 2.1, 3.0 and 4.5 contexts. Do you see the flying banner in all case? Please post back here the paragraph of the "context information" in each case, for example
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Last edit: André 2017-12-08
Here it is:
XFLR5 v6.32
context 2.1
Context information
Vendor: Intel
Renderer: Intel(R) Q45/Q43 Express Chipset
OpenGL version: 2.1.0 - Build 8.15.10.2302
GLSL version: 1.20 - Intel Build 8.15.10.2302
context 3.0
Context information
Vendor: Intel
Renderer: Intel(R) Q45/Q43 Express Chipset
OpenGL version: 2.1.0 - Build 8.15.10.2302
GLSL version: 1.20 - Intel Build 8.15.10.2302
context 4.5
Context information
Vendor: Intel
Renderer: Intel(R) Q45/Q43 Express Chipset
OpenGL version: 2.1.0 - Build 8.15.10.2302
GLSL version: 1.20 - Intel Build 8.15.10.2302
The flying banner is always OK.
OK, as you mentioned, these are old versions.
OpenGL 2.1 and GLSL1.20 were released in 2006
I don't know if I want to spend too much time trying to support these legacy versions. Nonetheless I may be able to implement a quick fix. Can you post a screenshot so that I can get a better understanding of the problem?
Did you check also if Intel has relased updated drivers for these chipsets?
These old computers are in the university classroom. They have latest drivers for these chipsets. I have made screenshots They are self-explanatory - the changes of display are caused only by settings of "Light" and "Axes".
http://people.tuke.sk/peter.gasparovic/pokus/xflr5_v632_opengl/
I suppose the screenshots are the same with v6.39?
It seems that the view is clipped in the plane z=0 in camera coordinates. Can you confirm this by rotating the view ? If that is the case, the surfaces should appear and disapear depending on their z position. If so, I can add an option to disable the clip plane.
Also, can you please check the latest version of OpenGL supported by the chipsets?
How to Access OpenGL and DirectX 3D Graphic Settings
I don't understand why drivers released in 2012 don't support OpenGL higher than 2,1
In v6.39, I am not able to use my trick to display panels (as I did in v6.32). Neither Light=off nor Axes=off help to display panels.
http://people.tuke.sk/peter.gasparovic/pokus/xflr5_v639_opengl/
Even Clipping plane settings to the full right doesn't help. Yo can see in Clipboard 1 that with Light=on the surface is actually shaded in black color (different black color than of the background). Clipboards 6 and 7 shows clipped view from the right and left side of aeroplane. The clipping works as it should (at least it seems to me).
I added screenshot of driver version - Windows says it is most recent driver version.
In Intel Graphics and Media Control Panel, there is only DirectX version. There is no info about OpenGL version.
There is a driver dated 8/30/2012 here
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/81511/Graphics-Drivers-for-Intel-Q45-Express-Chipset
but it won't change anything:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005524/graphics-drivers.html "Older Graphics Products" paragraph : the chipset only supports openGL2.0 and the minimum version that xflr5 requires is OpenGL2.1. I was confused because the context information that you posted back above says 2.1 nonetheless.
As suggested in this discussion, https://communities.intel.com/thread/112684 the best course of action would be to add an additional graphics card in a PCI slot. Any low end card wtih support for OpenGL 3.3+ should be good enough.
I'm afraid I can't do anything more to help.
Last edit: André 2017-12-19
André, thank you for your effort. At least you helped me to locate the cause. I will try to use v6.32 with my trick, because I can't hope for replacement of 25 computers because of problems with the single program. There are different programs used on these computers (Ansys, Siemens NX, PTC Creo), but none has problems with 3D graphics.