Hello, I started to work on a cross-platform app framework based around an OpenGL GUI library. You can find more info at http://freedev.yweb.sk/projects/libraries/universal/info.html

freeagle

freeagle  wrote / napísal(a):
> Hello, I started to work on a cross-platform app framework based around an OpenGL GUI library. You can find more info at http://freedev.yweb.sk/projects/libraries/universal/info.html
> 
> freeagle

shame on me, I didn't notice that Trevor Parscal continues his work under a new name - Element. Well, I'll at least try to go for the same goal on a different path and try to maintain some healthy competition ;)

freeagle

freeagle wrote:
> Hello, I started to work on a cross-platform app framework based around an OpenGL GUI library. You can find more info at http://freedev.yweb.sk/projects/libraries/universal/info.html
> 
> freeagle

I've been wondering why OpenGL is so appealing to people for this sort of thing. Wouldn't Cairo be more suitable (since OpenGL could then be used as desired, but not strictly required), especially considering the - then relatively easy - integration of other handy libraries like Pango?

Jeff  wrote / napísal(a):
> freeagle wrote:
>> Hello, I started to work on a cross-platform app framework based around an OpenGL GUI library. You can find more info at http://freedev.yweb.sk/projects/libraries/universal/info.html
>>
>> freeagle
> 
> I've been wondering why OpenGL is so appealing to people for this sort of thing. Wouldn't Cairo be more suitable (since OpenGL could then be used as desired, but not strictly required), especially considering the - then relatively easy - integration of other handy libraries like Pango?

Thanks for the reply,

I read some info about cairo, and it looked very promising. It could be possible to wrap cairo as an advanced 2D subsystem of the framework, and I really started to think about it. Until I found this at cairo site:

"For the time being disregard the idea of drawing into the same surface or texture with cairo- and OpenGL-calls. This is possible, but not in a very straight forward fashion. Also threadding-issues are not covered here at the moment. Everything happens in one thread right now."

They say using both cairo and gl calls to one surface is possible, but not that easy. While this can be solved, the second part of the quote really turned me down. As I wrote on my site, the framework will use thorough use of threads. Until cairo can't guarantee it's thread-safe status, I will not implement is as part of the framework.

Freeagle

Jeff  wrote / napísal(a):
> freeagle wrote:
>> Hello, I started to work on a cross-platform app framework based around an OpenGL GUI library. You can find more info at http://freedev.yweb.sk/projects/libraries/universal/info.html
>>
>> freeagle
> 
> I've been wondering why OpenGL is so appealing to people for this sort of thing. Wouldn't Cairo be more suitable (since OpenGL could then be used as desired, but not strictly required), especially considering the - then relatively easy - integration of other handy libraries like Pango?

Oh, sry, I forgot to answer you first question. Why OpenGL? purpose of these libs is to use hardware acceleration whereever possible and offer the same API regardless of the underlaying platform. There are only two fully-featured graphics APIs that use modern hardware for render acceleration - Direct3D and OpenGL. D3D is only for Windows platform. I think this leaves no other option than OpenGL.

freeagle

I think OpenVG is supposed to be released sometime around the end of the year.  And it is likely to be supported by vendors.  Don't know how long that will take, but if you have time, it may be worth waiting for that.

Anyway, the antialiasing situation in OpenGL is very disappointing as far as high-quality 2D output is concerned.

Check out Amanith, which is a good demo of the quality you can hope to get out of current OpenGL.
For non-HW accel there the antigrain geometry library (AGG), which does have quite good quality.

--bb

freeagle wrote:
> Jeff  wrote / napísal(a):
> 
>> freeagle wrote:
>>
>>> Hello, I started to work on a cross-platform app framework based around an OpenGL GUI library. You can find more info at http://freedev.yweb.sk/projects/libraries/universal/info.html
>>>
>>> freeagle
>>
>>
>> I've been wondering why OpenGL is so appealing to people for this sort of thing. Wouldn't Cairo be more suitable (since OpenGL could then be used as desired, but not strictly required), especially considering the - then relatively easy - integration of other handy libraries like Pango?
> 
> 
> Oh, sry, I forgot to answer you first question. Why OpenGL? purpose of these libs is to use hardware acceleration whereever possible and offer the same API regardless of the underlaying platform. There are only two fully-featured graphics APIs that use modern hardware for render acceleration - Direct3D and OpenGL. D3D is only for Windows platform. I think this leaves no other option than OpenGL.
> 
> freeagle