Display lists in 3.1

[aronsatie]

As far as I know, display lists are deprecated or even removed in OpenGL 3.1.

Because of this, there is one thing that stops me from moving to 3.1. I use wglUseFontOutlines extensively and this returns display lists, and there is no other way to get extruded fonts.

Or is there? Does anyone know of an alternative way to get fonts as models and not bitmaps in 3.1?

Thanks.

[Stephen A]

There are many ways to do that. The easiest is to use FTGL. Big plus: you get one step closer to cross-platform compatibility.

Second alternative: you can read the outlines of the font files directly in your code and tesselate them. Not easy, but it's been done before.

Third alternative: check the implementation of wglUseFontOutlines in the Wine source code (but beware of its license).

[aronsatie]

FTGL looks like the best alternative to me. Can you tell me what format does it convert the font to other than display lists?

Thanks.

[Jan]

Read the manual ?

[aronsatie]

Oh, it is against the rules to ask WHY someone suggested something?

Thanks a lot, I will keep that in mind.

[Stephen A]

I have never used FTGL, so I have no idea what formats FTGL it can convert to. However, I skimmed both the manual and its source code a couple of years ago and it looked both simple to use and versatile.