Re: [boost] interest on a geometry library

From: Sebastian Redl (sebastian.redl_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-03-26 07:18:49

Andy Little wrote:

>Pragmatically what I'm interested in is finding some basic Graphics capability,
>which is cross-platform  and available, just because that is the natural output
>format for geometry and would be very helpful for a geometry library. I have
>heard that GLUT could provide this basic functionality. Is that the case?
>  
>
GLUT is a wrapper around the platform-dependent parts of OpenGL, but not 
by itself capable of any graphic output. It needs OpenGL itself for that.

Let me elaborate. OpenGL requires a graphics context. However, OpenGL 
itself provides no means of obtaining one, as such an action is 
inherently platform-dependent and thus misplaced in a 
platform-independent library such as OpenGL.
The means of obtaining a context differ from platform to platform. Win32 
offers WGL, the X Windows System offers GLX, and Macintosh offers AGL. 
Other platforms may have yet more such system libraries.
GLUT is primarily a unified wrapper around these platform-dependent 
libraries.
In addition, GLUT provides a few functions to draw some graphics 
primitives, such as cubes, cones, and teapots, and functions to handle 
menus.

Sebastian Redl