GLUT for Mingw32
The OpenGL Utility Toolkit (GLUT) was developed by Mark Kilgard while
he was working for Silicon Graphics to let the user easily create OpenGL
applications. It has support for the GUI stuff such as windows, popup menus
etc. it is a good idea to get this library since much code samples is using
GLUT. In the GLUT source distribution is it tons of examples both
simple and more sophisticated many of them are very well known.
Some of the header files must be changed so that windows.h is included
or better APIENTRY is defined as __stdcall for them to work with Mingw32.
You can compile GLUT with Mingw32 but if you do not want to do that
get the precompiled GLUT for Mingw32 it
is a collection of GLUT libraries and headers with support for the following
components:
| libglut32.a, glut.h and glut32.dll |
glut implementation for the Microsoft implementation of OpenGL |
| libmui.a and header files |
GLUT-based micro-UI user interface library, here is a brief
user guide. |
| libgle.a, tube.h |
GLE Tubing & Extrusions library, homepage
and man pages in html format. |
| libglsmap.a, glsmap.h |
creation of sphere maps, here is some docs
and here is one simple example . |
Put glut32.dll in windows\system, the .a and .h files should be copied
to the compilers lib and include directories. After you have done this
in GLUT installed and ready to use. Include glut.h and link with -lglut32
to create GLUT programs.
The documentation for GLUT itself can be downloaded in a pdf file from
Silicon
Graphics but some of the newer stuff is only described in the
man
pages
Nate Robins has made a lot of the work on the windows port and the
GLUT
for Mingw32 is based on that. You do not have to compile
GLUT yourself but in the GLUT
sources is some of the most interesting OpenGL examples. They are in
the progs\ directory, here is an overview:
| examples |
misc. GLUT examples the most interesting is perhaps the various dino
samples. Get Mark Kilgards documentation from nvidia
. |
| redbook |
examples from the OpenGL Programming Guide ported to GLUT, you can
download it from gamedev
. |
| advanced |
GLUT examples demonstrating advanced OpenGL rendering techniques largely
based on the SIGGRAPH '96 course. Information at SGI
, SGI2. |
| advanced97 |
like the above but from SIGGRAPH '97 . You need to download the datafiles
from Silicon
Graphics also available here
with additional information |
| contrib |
contributed GLUT examples |
| demos |
more involved OpenGL demos using GLUT |
| bucciarelli |
some nice GLUT examples by David Bucciarelli |
| mesademos |
Ports to GLUT of programs distributed with Mesa. In the GLUT 3.7.3
source distribution are they wrongly placed in the inventor directory. |
| mui |
examples using the libmui.a library, do not forget the brief
guide |
| gle |
examples using the GLE Tubing & Extrusions library ( homepage
, man pages ) |
| spheremap |
sphere maps examples using the libglsmap.a library |
| texfont |
Tools and demos for using texture mapped fonts. It seems to be problems
with the .txf files in 3.7.3 so you must get the correct
.txf files . Texture mapped fonts is the fastest way to output text
on most cards. Additional fonts can be found in the PLIB
example distribution . |
| tiff |
You must get the tiff library
. I made some makefiles for Mingw32 and Borland.
The TIFF library seems to be pretty powerfull and must be one of the best
options for your textures. Once again is the datafiles in the GLUT 3.7.3
distribution corrupted but here is good TIFF
images . The samples loading TIFF images was very red. I do not know
if the TIFF library has changed or what the reason for that was but here
is some updated files . |
| isc. |
some minor examples and other less important like stuff for UNIX and
other languages |
Mark Kilgard made a cool page called Way
cool, way fast OpenGL techniques during his time at SGI that
explains some of the more interesting samples. OK, Direct3D has improved
but it is still fun to read the MS bashing. :-)
The man pages and this
GLUT tutorial is
also good.
Why not look at some (dark) videos showing a Mark Kilgard presentation?
Available in both Real
Video and Quicktime
.
The sources is a mess with mixed makefiles and text files.
No makefiles for Mingw32 is included but here
is the ones I have made for the GLUT 3.7.3 source distribution. The headers
from the latest runtime
is probably also required.
If you are interested in SIGGRAPH
'99 can the makefile.cygwin files in the package be used to build
the samples. Some of them needs an extra line setting CC to gcc (CC = gcc)
to work.
Some comments about GLUT:
-
if linked with the -mwindows option does not the console window pop up
but mostly is a console application to prefer
-
not all examples is working (some is for UNIX only etc.)
-
the redbook is the standard OpenGL book
-
GLUT programs can often be recompiled on other platforms without changes
-
the examples is not timed so most of them runs too fast on a modern PC
with 3D acceleration
-
GLUT is easy to use but limited so for bigger projects is probably some
other alternative better
-
users of Microsoft's Open GL should link to glut32.dll, glut.dll is for
the Silicon Graphics implementation of Open GL
-
on some systems does it make a different if the program is launched from
a prompt or the win9x desktop, this is not limited to GLUT applications.
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