[vtk-developers] GL Extension Wrangler library

[Moreland, Kenneth]

John,
 
Thanks for your show of support.  It is always good to see others
interested and will help to convince the VTK maintainers to adopt the
code.
 
To get things rolling, Gary Templet and I (the authors of the code and
Wiki documents) are planning to meet with Kitware in person to discuss
the advantages and issues regarding inserting this code into VTK.  Gary
and I have not yet made arrangements, but were thinking sometime in
February.
 
-Ken


________________________________

	From: John Biddiscombe (CSCS) [mailto:biddisco at cscs.ch] 
	Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 12:40 AM
	To: Moreland, Kenneth
	Cc: Michael Halle; VTK Developers
	Subject: Re: [vtk-developers] GL Extension Wrangler library
	
	
	Ken et al,
	
	I read the three docs attached with the Wiki and I have to say
I'm really impressed. I was a little surprised that the emails of last
week to the list didn't prokove any response, so for what it's worth I'm
in favour of all the proposed changes. I have been thinking for some
time of a vtkPolyDataPointSpriteMapper using ARB_POINT_SPRITE for
display of particles etc. I experimented with GLEW for getting
extensions etc and found it to be capable though quite large - but I had
mistakenly thought it to be GPL (so didn't use it for my test program) -
looking at the web site again I see that it is not. Either Glew or your
extension manager would be a great addition - particularly so if we
adopt the strategy of the painters...
	
	The painters heirarchy is just what we need, both for allowing
the kind of custom mapper plug in I have in mind, and also for generally
improving the performance of vtk overall. I had a couple of questions
regarding how to force the selection of a particular mapper over
another, but after rereading the doc I se that there is a mechanism in
place.
	
	What do we need to do to accelerate it's adoption? Are there any
unsolved issues that need to be worked on etc 
	
	JB
	
	
	Moreland, Kenneth wrote: 

		If you are interested, we have an OpenGL extension
manager designed to
		work with VTK.  Eventually, we would like to add it to
VTK proper, but
		this needs to be discussed with Kitware and with the VTK
community at
		large first.
		
		A short white paper is published on the VTK Wiki.  Have
a look.
		
		 
	
http://www.vtk.org/Wiki/images/3/35/VtkOpenGLExtensionManager_Overview.p
		df
		
		-Ken
		
		
		   ****      Kenneth Moreland
		    ***      Sandia National Laboratories
		***********  
		*** *** ***  email: kmorel at sandia.gov
		**  ***  **  phone: (505) 844-8919
		    ***      fax:   (505) 844-0833
		
		
		  

			-----Original Message-----
			From: vtk-developers-bounces at vtk.org 
			[mailto:vtk-developers-bounces at vtk.org] On
Behalf Of Michael Halle
			Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 8:32 AM
			To: 'VTK Developers'
			Subject: [vtk-developers] GL Extension Wrangler
library
			
			We're struggling to support a VTK OpenGL 3D
texture-based 
			volume rendering package because of differences
in OpenGL 
			versions across platforms.  We're happy to "bail
out" if the 
			right extensions aren't supported;  the biggest
problem we're 
			facing is effectively dealing with querying the
client and 
			server to find out if functionality is
supported, then using 
			that functionality without worrying about
whether EXT or ARB 
			is necessary.  Some platforms get this stuff
right, others don't.
			
			I recently discovered GLEW, The GL Extension
Wrangler library.
			It seems to take care of most of these problems,
work 
			cross-platform, be well-maintained, and have a
variety of 
			licenses (including modified BSD).  Does anyone
have 
			experience using it for larger projects?  I'd
consider it for 
			just our work, but it might be a good VTK-wide
solution for 
			this all-too-common VTK problem.  It would much
better allow 
			the selective use of extensions, with simple and

			understandable fallback to core OpenGL, and
allow us to use 
			the higher performance features of contemporary
graphics hardware.
			
			Thanks.
			
			Michael Halle
			mhalle @ bwh.harvard.edu
			
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	-- 
	John Biddiscombe,                            email:biddisco @
cscs.ch
	http://www.cscs.ch/about/BJohn.php
	CSCS, Swiss National Supercomputing Centre  | Tel:  +41 (91)
610.82.07
	Via Cantonale, 6928 Manno, Switzerland      | Fax:  +41 (91)
610.82.82

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