Notes About Installing OpenGL and GLUT

(Much of this page is borrowed from Lew Hitchner of Cal Poly State Univ. and Steve Cunningham of California State Univ. Stanislaus)

• OpenGL
  • Windows PC's (W95/W98/WinNT/XP)
    • If you have a recent version of W95/W98/WinNT/Win2000/WinXP, the OpenGL DLL's are already installed on your PC
    • If you have Microsoft Visual C++ (or Visual Studio), the OpenGL DLL's are already installed on your PC
    • Otherwise, you can download OpenGL from the WWW:
      • http://www.opengl.org
      • http://www.mesa3d.org
        (Mesa is a freeware version of OpenGL that runs on many different platforms)
  • Linux
    • Free version: see above link to Mesa
  • MacIntosh
    • Free version: see above link to Mesa
    • Commercial versions:
      • Apple, http://www.apple.com/opengl/
        
• GLUT
  • Copy from Angel Textbook CDROM, or....
    
  • ...Download from the WWW
    • http://www.opengl.org/developers/documentation/glut.html
      Or http://www.opengl.org then link to "Developer Documentation", then link to "About GLUT"
      
    • The recommended GLUT package for Windows/Intel platforms is to install the version 3.7 pre-compiled binary files. Download the file glutdlls37beta.zip, and install by following these instructions:
    • If it's not already there, copy the glut32.dll file into your Windows System folder. On Win2000/XP its C:\winnt\system32. On Win98 its C:\windows\system32.
    • If you have Visual Studio pre- .NET:
    • Move the glut32.lib into <visual studio path>\VC98\Lib folder.
      Normally this would be C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\Lib.
    • Move glut.h into <visual studio path>\VC98\Include\GL.
      Normally this would be C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\Include\GL .
    • If you have Visual Studio post- .NET:
      • Copy glut32.lib to <visual studio .NET path>\Vc7\Lib folder. Normally this would be C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET\Vc7\Lib.
      • Copy glut.h to <visual studio .NET path>\Vc7\Include\GL. Normally this would be C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET\Vc7\Include\GL

       

• Other recommendations for using OpenGL (by Mo Kakwan):
  • Great site for OpenGL tutorials (Java and C++)
  • Great reference book (the "Red Book")
  • LWJGL (Java library to OpenGL, "light weight java GL")
  • GLUT
  • Eclipse IDE
  • Directions to getting LWGL working in Eclipse
  • Directions to getting glut working on VC++ 6.0 (see above, too)
  • Directions to getting glut working on VC++2003 .net (see above, too)

Further notes on Installing and Using OpenGL and GLUT on Windows with Visual Studio suite

• • Getting Started with OpenGL and GLUT.
  • Simple OpenGL Tutorial for building a project with OpenGL in VC++
  • Building a simple OpenGL application in VC++

  Building an OpenGL/GLUT program with Visual C++

  1. Access Angel's code examples from book's CD or from his website directly: ftp://ftp.cs.unm.edu/pub/angel/BOOK/THIRD_EDITION/

  2. Start with gasket.c
  3. Open Visual C++ and create a new project (File->New-> projects)
  4. Select "Win32 Console Application" and name your project gasket or whatever you want. Click OK
  5. Select "An empty project" and click finish.
  6. Insert project files: Project->Add to Project-> files. Find and select gasket.c
  7. Linking libraries. If you have installed GLUT correctly, you shouldn't need to fiddle with the project settings to find the libraries. If things are acting oddly, check your project's settings:

  Project->Settings. Select "Link" tab.  In the Object\libraries field, type either of these:

  For Microsoft's OpenGL: opengl32.lib glu32.lib glut32.lib

  For SGI's OpenGL: opengl.lib glu.lib glut.lib

  8. Compile your program.

  Note 1: If you have problems compiling Angel's programs, do the following:

  Comment out the line long random( ), find all occurrences of random( ) and change them to rand( ). Ignore the warning Warning: const 'double' to 'float', may lose information. If you find that warning annoying do the following:

  Find the line glColor3f( 1.0, 0.0, 0.0 ) and change it to glColor3f( 1.0f, 0.0f ,0.0f ).

  Note 2: For users of SGI's OpenGL. You must comment out the following lines in the header file glut.h

  #pragma comment (lib, "opengl32.lib") /* link with Microsoft OpenGL lib */

  #pragma comment (lib, "glu32.lib") /* link with OpenGL Utility lib */

  #pragma comment (lib, "glut32.lib") /* link with Win32 GLUT lib */

  and add the lines

  #pragma comment (lib, "opengl.lib") /* link with SGIís OpenGL lib */

  #pragma comment (lib, "glu.lib") /* link with SGIís OpenGL Utility lib */

  #pragma comment (lib, "glut.lib") /* link with SGIís Win32 GLUT lib */

  If you don't make the changes, you'll get linking errors.

  Note 3: Getting rid of the console window.

  1. Go to Project->Settings->Link->Project Options
  2. In the Project Options field find:

  /subsystem:console (it's one of the last lines)

  change it to

  /subsystem:windows /entry:mainCRTStartup

  Note that error messages and output will be lost (unless redirected) if you get rid of the console window.
  
  
• Books and online books about OpenGL (opengl.org web site)
  http://www.opengl.org/developers/documentation/books.html.
  
  
• Tutorials about OpenGL (opengl.org web site)
  • For straightforward documentation, there is OpenGL documentation on the book's CD (see D:\MAN_PAGES\man_pages.zip, where 'D' is your CD drive.) You should download the html version to your machine, unzip it, and look for the gl/index__.html file as a starting point.
  • For a bunch of on-line tutorials, try this: http://www.opengl.org/developers/code/tutorials.html.