OpenGL++: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 09:56, 7 January 2006

Revision as of 09:57, 7 January 2006

Line 2:

==Development==

OpenGL++ (OGL++) was intended to offer a selection of routines and standardized data structures to dramatically simplify writing "real" programs using OpenGL. Instead of the programmer having to keep track of the objects in the 3D world and make sure they were culled properly, OpenGL++ would include its own [[scene graph]] system and handle many of the basic manipulation duties for the programmer. In additionzczxcczaddition, OGL++ included a system for modifying the scene graph on the fly, re-arranging it for added performance.

zczc Much of OGL++ was a combination of ideas from earlier SGI projects in the same vein, namely [[Open Inventor]] which offered ease-of-use, and [[OpenGL Performer]] which was written separately from Inventor to deliver a system that optimized scene graphs for increased performance and exploited scalable architectures. It was later intended that a new design could get the best of both worlds while forming the underlying framework for several projects including [[Computer Aided Design|CAD]], [[image processing]], [[flight simulator|visual simulation]], [[scientific visualization]] and user interfaces or 3D manipulators allowing them to interoperate, thereby offering both rapid development and high performance.

SGI had already almost completed one effort to merge the functionality of scene graphs[[Cosmo 3D]], Cosmo 3D was in fact the spinoff from an earlier collaboration with Sun which was supposed to produce a scene graph for Java in conjunction with SGI's new scene graph, Sun and SGI went their separate ways with Java3D and Cosmo3D. When SGI announced the OGL++ effort, they halted development of Cosmo3D when it had just reached a beta release. By then a CAD/"Large Model Visualization" layer of functionality called OpenGL Optimizer had already been implemented on Cosmo3D and then released as a product. Other "front end" packages like, Cosmo Code, a [[VRML]] authoring tool, were produced by a different division and use of the Cosmo name was merely part of a broader marketing strategy, it ran on OpenGL. OGL++ was intended to be a cleaned up and more flexible version of Cosmo3D, most of the Cosmo3D team started work on OGL++ and a lot of the effort was aimed at a specification and implementation that could deliver on the promise of a truly powerful yet generic scene graph.