Landview Tutorial
There you can find a set of examples about how to implement, step by step, a landscape visualization program with OpenGL API.
Screen shot for the last (more improved) step, for now.
At the moment I don't release texts explaining in detail the improvements between each step.
The examples are implemented in C, works under Linux with Mesa, and Windows with GNU-Win32 (Cygwin).
If you have problems compiling or running the examples, tell me, ok? Even if you have sugestions, comments, etc. Observation: I can delay to respond because I don't have easy access to Internet.
Download:
sources: landview-tutorial-src.tgz (9647 bytes)
binaries for Linux: landview-tutorial-linux-bin.tgz (27043 bytes)
binaries for Windows: landview-tutorial-win32-bin.tgz (43044 bytes)
Install and Compile:
Under Linux:
It's suposed you have installed GCC (I use version 2.95.2), and Mesa (I use version 4.1).
Extract the sources with:
tar zxvf landview-tutorial-src.tgz
Go inside the extracted directory:
cd landview-tutorial-src/
Try compile:
make all
If compilation fails, try edit the makefile, - some distributions use distinct names for the Mesa library files. Change the line:
LIBRARIES = -lglut -lGL -lGLU -lm
acording your case.
Under Windowns:
Download from Web and install the GNU-Win32 packages: gcc, OpenGL, binutils, w32api, ash, make.
Extract the sources in one user directory of GNU-Win32 tree. For example:
cd /home/unknown
tar zxvf landview-tutorial-src.tgz
Go inside the extracted directory:
cd landview-tutorial-src/
Change the makefile variable:
LIBRARIES = -lglut -lGL -lGLU -lm
to
LIBRARIES = -lglut32 -lglu32 -lopengl32
Compile with:
make all
You can generate executables that don't need cygwin.dll. For this, before compile, open the file called makefile in one source code editor (one that doesn't convert TABs to spaces, or add DOS line breaks). Add at the end of line, where the variable OPTIONS is declared: -mno-cygwin. The examples will continue working because they don't use any UNIX feature emulated by CygWin. If you use CygWin (cygwin.dll), you have restrictions imposed by CygWin license (there are more details on www.fltk.org, or CygWin site).
You can try decrease your executable size, after compilation, with strip. Execute, for example: strip step11.exe
Usefull Links:
OpenGL - graphic API with implementations on many platforms (UNIX, Win, Mac, etc)
Mesa - free graphic library, implements most OpenGL features; multi-platform
GNU-Win32 - free, UNIX like, development environment for Windows
NeHe - OpenGL tutorials on many platforms