OpenGL Performer™ Getting Started Guide

Table of Contents

New Features in This Guide

About This Guide

What Is OpenGL Performer?

Why Use OpenGL Performer?

What You Should Know Before Reading This Guide

What This Guide Contains

Conventions

Internet and Hardcopy Reading for the OpenGL Performer Series

Reader Comments

I. Overview of OpenGL Performer

1. Getting Acquainted with OpenGL Performer

Installing the Software

Exploring the OpenGL Performer Sample Scenes with Perfly

Loading Databases into OpenGL Performer

Going Beyond Visual Simulation

2. OpenGL Performer Basics

OpenGL Performer Applications

Library Structure of OpenGL Performer

Overview of the OpenGL Performer Library Structure

X and IRIS IM

Porting from IRIS GL to OpenGL

Survey of Visual Simulation Techniques

II. Programming with OpenGL Performer

3. OpenGL Performer Programming Interface

General Naming Conventions

Class API

Base Clas ses

4. Introduction to OpenGL Performer Concepts

Scene-to-Screen Path

Parts of a Performer Application

Inputting and Reading User Events

5. Creating a Display with pfChannel

Creating and Configuring a pfChannel

Initializing the pfChannel View

Channel Callbacks

Using Multiple Channels

Multiple Pipes

6. Creating Scene Graphs

What Is a Node?

Scene Graph Nodes

Creating a Scene Graph

Loading a Scene Graph

Saving a Scene Graph

Scene Graph Traversals

Customizing OpenGL Performer Traversals

7. Creating Geometry with pfGeoSets

pfGeoSet Overview

Creating a pfGeoSet

Attributes of pfGeoSet Primitives

Placing Geometry in a Scene Graph

Creating Common Geometric Objects

8. Specifying the Appearance of Geometry with pfState and pfGeoState

Setting the Graphics State

Using Textures

Specifying the Material

Specifying Lighting

9. Placing Geometry in a Scene

World Space and Object Space

Transformation Nodes

Using pfFCS

Using DCS Nodes

Using SCS Nodes

10. Controlling Frame Rate

Double Buffering

Specifying a Target Frame Rate

Frame Synchronization

Adjusting the Frame Rate Automatically

11. Multiprocessing

OpenGL Performer Stages

Benefits of Multiprocessing

Shared Memory

Printing Process States

Setting Up Multiprocessing

Automatic Multiprocessing

12. Database Paging

Anticipating Paging

Database Process

13. Intersection Testing

Creating an ISECT Process

Constructing a Segment Set for pfNodeIsectSegs()

Testing for Intersections

14. Creating a User Interface

Traveling through a Scene

Example of Implementing User Interaction

15. Optimizing Performance

General Performance Tips

Culling Unseen Shapes

Maintaining Frame Rate Using D VR

Level of Detail Reduced for Performance

Reducing System Stress

Optimizing Geometry Performance

Optimizing Graphics State Changes

Optimizing Texture Handling

Optimizing File Loading

A. Building a Visual Simulation Application Using libpf

Overview

Setting Up the Basic Elements

Performance

Compiling and Linking OpenGL Performer Applications

B. Building a Visual Simulation Application Using libpfv

Overview

The Simplest pfvViewer Program

Adding Interaction to a pfvViewer Program

Reading XML Configuration Files

Module Scoping, Multiple Worlds and Multiple Views

Extending a pfvViewer—Writing Custom Modules

 Extending a pfvViewer—Module Entry Points

Picking, Selection, and Interaction

More Sample Programs, Configuration Files, and Source Code

C. Image Gallery

Glossary

Index