OpenGL Optimizer^™   Programmer's Guide:  An Open API for  Large-Model Visualization

Table of Contents

About This Guide

Audience for This Guide

How to Use This Guide

What This Guide Contains

Recommended Background Reading

Conventions Used in This Guide

I. Getting Started

1. OpenGL Optimizer Overview

The Optimizer Challenge and Solution

The OpenGL Optimizer Toolset

2. Basic I/O: Getting Started with OpenGL Optimizer

Calling opInit()

Saving and Loading Scene-Graph Files

Viewing Class: opViewer

Controlling Rendering: opKeyCallback and opDrawImpl

II. High-Level Strategic Tools for Fast Rendering

3. Sending Efficient Graphics Data to the Hardware

Display Lists

Vertex Arrays

Shortening Representations of Surface Normal Data

Avoiding OpenGL Mode Switching

Creating OpenGL Connected Primitives

4. Rendering Appropriate Levels of Detail

Overview of Simplification Tools

opSimplify: Base Class for Adding Level-of-Detail Nodes

Creating LODs: opSRASimplify

Rossignac Simplification Algorithm: opLatticeSimplify

Merging Graphs With Differing Levels of Detail: opMergeScenes

5. Culling Unneeded Objects From the Scene Graph

View-Frustum Culling

Occlusion Culling

View-Frustum and Occlusion Cull Draw Traversal: opDrawAction

Rendering With View-Frustum and Occlusion Culling: opOccDrawImpl

Tuning Tips for Occlusion Culling

Detail Culling

Back-Face Culling

6. Organizing the Scene Graph Spatially

Effect of Spatialization on Cull Traversals

Granularity Trade-offs

When to Spatialize

Spatialization Algorithm

Spatialization Tool: opSpatialize

Classes for Component Procedures of Spatialization

III. Specific Tools for Fast Rendering

7. Interactive Highlighting and Manipulating

Overview of Highlighting and Picking

Interacting With a Rendered Object: opPickDrawImpl

Scene Graph Modification: opPick

Node to Override Appearances: opHighlight

8. Efficient High-Quality Lighting Effects: Reflection Mapping

Simple Mapping: Remote View of a Remote Environment

Accurate Mapping: Local View of a Local Environment

Reflection-Mapping Class: opReflMap

IV. Managing and Rendering Higher-Order Geometric Primitives

9. Higher-Order Geometric Primitives and Discrete Meshes

Features and Uses of Higher-Order Geometric Primitives

Objects Required by Reps

Geometric Primitives: The Base Class opRep and the Application repTest

Planar Curves

Spatial Curves

Parametric Surfaces

opCuboid

Regular Meshes and Discrete Surfaces

10. Creating and Maintaining Surface Topology

Overview of Topology Tasks

Summary of Scene Graph Topology: opTopo

Consistent Vertices at Boundaries: opBoundary

Collecting Connected Surfaces: opSolid

11. Rendering Higher-Order Primitives: Tessellators

Features of Tessellators

Base Class opTessellateAction

Tessellating Curves in Space

Tessellating a Cuboid: opTessCuboidAction

Tessellating Parametric Surfaces

Tessellating a Regular Mesh

V. Traversers, Low-Level Geometry Processing, and Multiprocessing

12. Traversing a Large Scene Graph

Traversals and Callbacks: General Features

Controlling a Traversal With the Callback Return Value opTravDisp

Specifying Deletion of Traversal Object Storage: opActionDisp

Depth-First Traversals: opDFTravAction

Breadth-First Traversals: opBFTravAction

Sample Traversal Function From the opoptimize Sample Application

Traversing a Scene Graph and Applying a csDispatch: opDispatchAction

13. Manipulating Triangles and Rebuilding Renderable Objects

Overview of Low-Level Geometry Tools

Decomposing csGeoSets Into Constituent Triangles: opGeoConverter

Specifying Coloring of New csGeoSets: opColorGenerator

Building New csGeoSets

14. Managing Multiple Processors

MP Control Tasks and Related Classes

Overview of the Thread Manager

Thread Manager: opThreadMgr

Defining Tasks for a Thread Manager

Coordinating Threads That Change a Scene Graph: opTransactionMgr

Low-Level Multiprocess Tools

VI. Utilities and Troubleshooting

15. Utilities

Error Handling and Notification

Performance Indicators

opx: A Template Class for Dynamic Arrays of Contiguous Elements

Printing a Scene Graph

Gathering Triangle Statistics

Displaying Node Information

Observing OpenGL Modes

Command-Line Parser: opArgParser

16. Troubleshooting

Compiler Warning Messages

Run-Time Warning Messages

Tuning the Scene Graph Database

VII. Appendices

A. Installing OpenGL Optimizer

Installing the OpenGL Optimizer and Supporting Software on UNIX Systems

Installing OpenGL Optimizer on NT Systems

B. OpenGL Optimizer Sample Applications

Command-Line Options and User Input

opviewer Sample Application

Other Sample Applications

C. opviewer Sample Application

Verifying Installation

Compiling and Running opviewer

opviewer Code

D. Scene Graph Tuning With the opoptimize Application

Values Returned by Scene Graph Tools

Compiling and Running opoptimize

opoptimize Code

E. Optimizer Class Hierarchy

opGUI Class Hierarchy

opXmGUI class hierarchy

Optimizer Class Hierarchy

Glossary

Index