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Related projects

Please note that a broader survey is available from Jim Mathies.

• GLUT (OpenGL Utility Toolkit)
  GLUT is a simple C API developped by Mark J. Kilgard at SGI, supporting a wide palette of platforms : unices (Irix, Linux, AIX, Solaris, etc), Win32, MacOS, OS/2 and others ! It offers simple windowing and event mechanisms, reasonable input support (keyboard, joystick, spaceball, etc), bitmap and stroke fonts (via GLE from v3.6), a menu widget and some geometric primitives generators. Glut has its own proprietary (and free) license (see freeglut as an alternative).
  
  
• freeglut
  " The freeglut library is meant to be a free and open sourced (released under X-MIT license alternative to the OpenGL Utility Toolkit library, also known as the GLUT library. It allows the user to create and manage windows containing OpenGL contexts on a wide range of platforms in an unique manner. The original GLUT library author seems to have dropped the project, and its license does not allow anyone to distribute modified library code. This would be OK, if not for the fact that GLUT is getting old and really needs improvement. "
  
  
• GUT (Grand Unified Toolkit)
  GUT is aiming at being a complete system abstraction for game programming. It provides a C++ API that handles OpenGL management, texture loading, font rendering, read/write files, load dynamic libraries and OpenAL init. Available for Linux, Win32 and BeOS under the X-MIT license.
  
  
• SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer)
  SDL was originally designed for a portable way of programming direct and fast access to the graphics framebuffer and audio hardware, but now also has hooks for OpenGL integration. Supported on Linux, Win32, BeOS, MacOS, Solaris, IRIX and FreeBSD, this C API provides abstraction for audio, video, CD-ROM access and multithreading. SDL API extensions are becoming available, such as TrueType support, MPEG decoding, audio mixer control, GUI or image loading. SDL is licensed under the LGPL.
  
  
• PLIB
  PLIB is a C++ wrapper for glut, bundled with the high level services you always wanted to have at once : a GUI (user interface), a sound library, a geometry library (complementary to GLU), a simple scene graph, sound support, joystick support, networking, fonts and various tools. PLIB is licensed under the LGPL.
  
  
• GLFW
  A simple and lightweight glut replacement : the API is made of 19 C functions, support basic events (mouse and keyboard), full screen and OpenGL extensions. Everything in a portable way, currently supports Windows and Linux. License is Freeware, comparable to the X-MIT one (the author only asks for credits).
  
  
• GLH
  Nvidia's glut-based C++ framework, mostly interesting for its original (and dedicated) helpers.
  
  
• CPW
  C framework modeled after Glut, but goes a definitive step further. Support fullscreen, Freetype fonts, OpenAL and imaging add-ons, has a pretty doc. Cross-platform design buth currently Windows only.
  
  
• GLT
  C++ framework available under the LGPL license. Loads PPM/TGA/BMP/PNG to textures, prints bitmap fonts and abstract most OpenGL objects as classes (lights, camera, matrices, meshes). It is based on glut and thus inherits its portability.
  
  
• DemoGL
  Win32 only C++ 'run-time' platform for rapid visual demonstration development. Include complete sound support (BASS library), simple scripting and various thingies a scener can't live without.
  
  
• Native glues : Win32 | X Window | MacOS | BeOS | OS/2

Related material

OpenGL :	OpenGL.org SGI's OpenGL sample implementation NeHe OpenGL tutorials
Cross-platform programming :	C++ portability guide
Game programming :	Gamasutra GameDev FlipCode
Others :	Slashdot User friendly ThinkGeek

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© 2000-2003 NGL Team

Last modified on Tuesday 11 May 2004 14:42 by vincent