How to rotate a gluCylinder 3D

I try to generate a 3Dpoly made of short gluCylinders, in one
dimension it works:

glRotatef(alpha, 0.0,1.0,0.0);
glTranslatef(x,y,z);
gluCylinder(quad,0.2,0.2,32,32);

But with 2 or 3 dimesion I get unexpected results.
So, please tell me: What do I have to learn ?

Vance

VanceRegnet,
Please describe what expected result is.

What I see in your code is;

  1. Translate the cylinder to (x,y,z) first
  2. then Rotate it alpha degree about Y-axis

Do you want to ratate first then translate?
If then, swap the order of your transforms.

songho,
thank you for your help. I feel encouraged to describe my problem in detail.
I want to have a method that draws a steric polyline. I did it former with POVRAY, it’s easier,
there you define a cylinder with a base point and a top point.

My my method is declared as following :

  • void drawPolylineWithVertices; NSArray* arr
    .
    . ;
    The related part of the definition is :
    int i;
    for//i=0;i< arr count-1;i++//
    //
    get arr objectAtindex:i
    extract point array to x, y and z
    calculate arcs alphaXY, alphaXZ with point i and i+1
    Rotation of the cylinder at the origin
    around Y-axis with alphaXZ
    around Z-axis with alphaXY
    then translate from the origin to x,y,z
    //

I use for test three sinus functions at the three axes, you can recognize function , translate is O.K. , but the cylinders do not
point from i to i+1.

Can you see what’s wrong ?
VanceRegnet