The de facto standard graphics programming library (application program interface, or API).

• Mesa
• Simple Xlib programming example:
  • glxsimple is a tiny program for initializing and displaying an Xlib GL graphics window.

    Three Makefile's are provided, each configured for three different systems: SGI, CES (Sparc Ultra5), and Linux. Depending on where you want to compile the programs, rename the appropriate Makefile.<system> to Makefile.

  • Makefile.sgi (sgi machines)
  • Makefile.ces (ces machines)
  • Makefile.linux (linux machines)
  • glxsimple.c
  • You can get all of the above files in this tar file, glx-simple.tar.gz. When uncompressed and untarred it'll create a glx-simple directory.

The GUI Toolkit, Framework Page
A web page containing a comparison of many toolkits. There are a lot of them out there, below are three of the best for interactive graphics programming.

Qt
This is by far my favorite C++ GUI toolkit.

GLUT
A simple, no-frills (no logo even! :) C GUI used to simplify learning graphics programming. It makes window creation fairly easy, but it lacks a lot of nice features such as buttons, file browsers, etc. If you're going to learn interactive graphics, you might as well also learn to use a more powerful GUI toolkit.

• Simple GLUT programming example:
  • checks is a tiny program for initializing and displaying a GLUT GL graphics window.

    Three Makefile's are provided, each configured for three different systems: SGI, CES (Sparc Ultra5), and Linux. Depending on where you want to compile the programs, rename the appropriate Makefile.<system> to Makefile.

  • Makefile.sgi (sgi machines)
  • Makefile.ces (ces machines)
  • Makefile.linux (linux machines)
  • checks.c
  • You can get all of the above files in this tar file, glut-simple.tar.gz. When uncompressed and untarred it'll create a glut-simple directory.

A powerful C GUI used to create The Gimp. It's somewhat hard to learn (lacking good manuals), but once you get comfortable with its syntax and methodology, you'll find it to be a very good toolkit.

• Gtk v1.2 Tutorial
• Gtk Reference Documentation Project
• GTK+ Application Repository
  • GtkGLArea (GTK+ Widget for OpenGL drawable area)
• Simple GTK programming example:
  • gtksimple and gtksimple2 are short little programs for initializing and displaying two painfully small GTK windows.

    gtkglsimple is a small program which opens up the same small window and a larger window for OpenGL drawing.

    Three Makefile's are provided, each configured for three different systems: SGI, CES (Sparc Ultra5), and Linux. Depending on where you want to compile the programs, rename the appropriate Makefile.<system> to Makefile.

  • Makefile.sgi (sgi machines)
  • Makefile.ces (ces machines)
  • Makefile.linux (linux machines)
  • gtksimple.c
  • gtksimple2.c
  • gtkglsimple.c
  • You can get all of the above files in this tar file, gtk.tar.gz. When uncompressed and untarred it'll create a gtk-simple directory.
• Simple image viewing example:
  • ppmview is a short little utility for viewing PPM images. Try using it to view the pnm/mandrill.ppm image (shift-click to download).

    Usage: ppmview [FILE]...

    Three Makefile's are provided, each configured for three different systems: SGI, CES (Sparc Ultra5), and Linux. Depending on where you want to compile the programs, rename the appropriate Makefile.<system> to Makefile.

  • Makefile.linux (linux machines)
  • Makefile.ces (ces machines)
  • Makefile.sgi (sgi machines)
  • viewppm.c
  • You will need the libpnm library installed and compiled in the subdirectory pnm.
  • You can get all of the above files in this tar file, gtk-viewppm.tar.gz. When uncompressed and untarred it'll create a gtk-viewppm directory.
• Simple graphics programming example:
  • viewlw is a nifty little utility for viewing LightWave 3D objects. Try using it to view included alien.lwo and penguin.lwo objects (shift-click to download these - they're binary, so won't display properly in the browser).

    Usage: viewlw [FILE]...

    In the program:
    

    Mouse button 1+drag	spin (virtual trackball)
    Mouse button 2+drag	zoom
    Mouse button 3	popup menu

    Three Makefile's are provided, each configured for three different systems: SGI, CES (Sparc Ultra5), and Linux. Depending on where you want to compile the programs, rename the appropriate Makefile.<system> to Makefile.

  • Makefile.linux (linux machines)
  • Makefile.ces (ces machines)
  • Makefile.sgi (sgi machines)
  • lw.h
  • lw.c
  • trackball.h
  • trackball.c
  • viewlw.c
  • You can get the entire code distribution in this tar file, gtk-gl.tar.gz. When uncompressed and untarred it'll create a gtk-gl directory.

An easy C++ GUI based on the old Forms package. Includes a visual GUI creator program (fluid) which lets you set up buttons, windows, etc., and generate the skeleton callback C++ file. Using OpenGL is simplified by creating a special window subclass Fl_Gl_Window.

• On-line documentation