Drawing Primitives in OpenGL
- OpenGL Primitives
- Specifying Vertex Data
- Drawing Details
- Performance Issues
- More Information
- References
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Computer-generated animation in film and television, as well as state-of-the-art video games, features realistic water, fire, and other natural effects. Many people new to computer graphics are astounded to learn that these realistic and complex models are simple triangles and pixels as far as computer graphics hardware is concerned.
OpenGL is often referred to as a low-level API because of its minimal support for higher-order primitives, data structures such as scene graphs, or support for loading 2D image files or 3D model files. Instead, OpenGL focuses on rendering low-level primitives efficiently and with a variety of basic, yet flexible, rendering features. As a result of this "tools not rules" approach, OpenGL is the preferred low-level API for a variety of middle-ware and applications that feature higher-order primitives, scene graph data structures, and file loaders.
In this chapter, OpenGL® Distilled covers the OpenGL primitive types and how to control their appearance with several basic rendering features.
What You'll LearnThis chapter covers the following aspects of primitive rendering:
Primitive types—The ten primitive types for rendering point, line, and polygonal primitives.
Buffer objects and vertex arrays—Generally recognized as the most efficient method for specifying geometry.
Rendering details—OpenGL commands for hidden surface removal, transparency, and displaying co-planar primitives.
Performance issues—Some tips to help your application run as efficiently as possible on most OpenGL implementations.
What You Won't LearnBecause this book presents only OpenGL's most essential commands, several aspects of primitive rendering aren't covered in this chapter:
The glBegin ()/ glEnd () paradigm—OpenGL® Distilled covers the glBegin ()/ glEnd () paradigm for illustrative purposes only. Most OpenGL implementations avoid using glBegin ()/ glEnd () to specify geometry due to its inherent performance issues.
Vertex data—This chapter covers normal and texture-coordinate data and omits other vertex data, such as vertex attributes (used in vertex shaders), edge flags, and fog coordinates.
Mapping and unmapping buffer objects—This chapter doesn't discuss the interface for dynamically altering portions of buffer object data.
Evaluators—OpenGL allows programmers to render implicit curves and surfaces from control points.
Rectangles—Because you can specify vertices to render any desired shape, this shorthand interface for drawing rectangles in the plane is rarely used.
Full vertex array functionality—This book presents a subset of the vertex array interface and doesn't cover interleaved arrays; vertex array data types other than GL_FLOAT and GL_DOUBLE; and some vertex array rendering commands, such as glDrawArrays ().
This book doesn't cover all features that affect the final color and appearance of rendered geometry, such as fog, stencil, vertex and fragment shaders, and other related features.
Though useful in many rendering circumstances, these features aren't essential for OpenGL programming. If your application requires this functionality, see OpenGL® Programming Guide, OpenGL® Reference Manual, and OpenGL® Shading Language.
2.1 OpenGL Primitives
In OpenGL, applications render primitives by specifying a primitive type and a sequence of vertices with associated data. The primitive type determines how OpenGL interprets and renders the sequence of vertices.
2.1.1 Primitive Types
OpenGL provides ten different primitive types for drawing points, lines, and polygons, as shown in Figure 2-1.
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Figure 2-1 OpenGL primitive types.
OpenGL interprets the vertices and renders each primitive using the following rules:
- GL_POINTS— Use this primitive type to render mathematical points. OpenGL renders a point for each vertex specified.
- GL_LINES— Use this primitive to draw unconnected line segments. OpenGL draws a line segment for each group of two vertices. If the application specifies n vertices, OpenGL renders n/2 line segments. If n is odd, OpenGL ignores the final vertex.
- GL_LINE_STRIP— Use this primitive to draw a sequence of connected line segments. OpenGL renders a line segment between the first and second vertices, between the second and third, between the third and fourth, and so on. If the application specifies n vertices, OpenGL renders n–1 line segments.
- GL_LINE_LOOP— Use this primitive to close a line strip. OpenGL renders this primitive like a GL_LINE_STRIP with the addition of a closing line segment between the final and first vertices.
- GL_TRIANGLES— Use this primitive to draw individual triangles. OpenGL renders a triangle for each group of three vertices. If your application specifies n vertices, OpenGL renders n/3 triangles. If n isn't a multiple of 3, OpenGL ignores the excess vertices.
- GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP— Use this primitive to draw a sequence of triangles that share edges. OpenGL renders a triangle using the first, second, and third vertices, and then another using the second, third, and fourth vertices, and so on. If the application specifies n vertices, OpenGL renders n–2 connected triangles. If n is less than 3, OpenGL renders nothing.
- GL_TRIANGLE_FAN— Use this primitive to draw a fan of triangles that share edges and also share a vertex. Each triangle shares the first vertex specified. If the application specifies a sequence of vertices v, OpenGL renders a triangle using v 0, v 1, and v 2; another triangle using v 0, v 2, and v 3; another triangle using v 0, v 3, and v 4; and so on. If the application specifies n vertices, OpenGL renders n–2 connected triangles. If n is less than 3, OpenGL renders nothing.
- GL_QUADS— Use this primitive to draw individual convex quadrilaterals. OpenGL renders a quadrilateral for each group of four vertices. If the application specifies n vertices, OpenGL renders n/4 quadrilaterals. If n isn't a multiple of 4, OpenGL ignores the excess vertices.
- GL_QUAD_STRIP— Use this primitive to draw a sequence of quadrilaterals that share edges. If the application specifies a sequence of vertices v, OpenGL renders a quadrilateral using v 0, v 1, v 3, and v 2; another quadrilateral using v 2, v 3, v 5, and v 4; and so on. If the application specifies n vertices, OpenGL renders (n-2)/2 quadrilaterals. If n is less than 4, OpenGL renders nothing.
- GL_POLYGON— Use GL_POLYGON to draw a single filled convex n-gon primitive. OpenGL renders an n-sided polygon, where n is the number of vertices specified by the application. If n is less than 3, OpenGL renders nothing.
For GL_QUADS, GL_QUAD_STRIP, and GL_POLYGON, all primitives must be both planar and convex. Otherwise, OpenGL behavior is undefined. The GLU library supports polygon tessellation, which allows applications to render filled primitives that are nonconvex or self-intersecting, or that contain holes. See the "gluTess" set of functions in OpenGL® Reference Manual for more information.
2.1.2 Vertex Sharing
Note that GL_LINE_STRIP, GL_LINE_LOOP, GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP, GL_TRIANGLE_FAN, and GL_QUAD_STRIP all share vertices among their component line segments, triangles, and quadrilaterals. In general, you should use these primitives when possible and practical to reduce redundant per-vertex computation.
You could render a two-quadrilateral GL_QUAD_STRIP primitive by using GL_QUADS, for example. Rendered as a GL_QUAD_STRIP, your application would need to send only six unique vertices. The GL_QUADS version of this primitive, however, would require eight vertices, two of which are redundant. Passing identical vertices to OpenGL increases the number of per-vertex operations and could create a performance bottleneck in the rendering pipeline.