Advice for display lists and multiple views

OpenGL OpenGL: Advanced Coding
1

Greetings,

I heard you have to create a display list within a glbegin and glend block. Is there a way that I can “save” this list and use it again later. Reason being is that if I create a display list, render it to the screen, and then click and drag it. I want to use the same display list to update the rotating “object”, but once the first frame renders I am outside a glend. Hope this makes sense?

I want to implement multiple views (top, left, front, camera) in an application. Any tips on this? Also can I use a display list between the 4 views (but just set the view to orthogonal or perspective as required)?

Thanks.

2

You heard wrong. Display lists can be created outside begin/end pairs.

Typical code sketch:

drawObjectWithTransform( Matrix transform, Object o )
{
glLoadMatrix( &transform );
if( !o.displayList ) {
// create list without rendering it
o.displayList = make_new_display_list();
o.renderInIdentityTransform();
end_making_new_display_list();
}
glCallList( o.displayList );
}

Dunno if I’d call this an “advanced” topic, though… perhaps there aren’t enough people on the other board to give an answer.

3

So can I create a display list in code completely outside any GL rendering stuff? If possible I would like to create the displaylist when I calculate the mesh heights and then use it within the opengl display bits.

Are there any limits on when you can create a display list?

Sorry if this isn’t the most appropriate forum for this message.

4

All the rules for creating display lists are documented in the specification. The specification, version 1.4, is downloadable as a PDF file at the front page of this web site. I highly recommend it.

In my example, o.renderInIdentityTransform() would go ahead and just render the vertices of whatever “o” is, using GL calls. I’m assuming there already is a valid GL context. The code illustrates how to easily use the display list as a cache for geometry, which can then be re-displayed elsewhere by drawing the same object in a different transform, as the transform part happens before the display list compilation.