Hello,

Is there any abstraction of OpenGL for Lazarus/FPC. I am not that interested on learning OpenGL at low level, but rather use what it can provide, a bit higher level?

Similar to GlScene... (Or is there Port of GlScene for Lazarus(FPC)... )

-Tee-

See here
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=glscene+lazarus

Mattias

You can also try Castle Game Engine, an open-source 3D game engine for Lazarus/FPC, see http://wiki.freepascal.org/Castle_Game_Engine and http://castle-engine.sourceforge.net/engine.php :)

Michalis

What about SDL ?

AFAIK, same can use Open GL (and other) graphical backends.

-Michael

Michael Schnell wrote

AFAIK, same can use Open GL (and other) graphical backends.

+1

SDL has excellent cross-platform support, and can use multiple low level graphical backends to suite each platform. It is under active development, and was/is used in many game development, so we know it has good performance too.

On a side note:
I use the sound support of SDL in a commercial app, and it works very well.

Regards,
- Graeme -

-10

SDL does not provide what the OP is looking for. The only thing you gain by using SDL is cross-plattform context creation (which Lazarus provides, too, via TOpenGLControl). But you still have to learn pure, low level OpenGL to use it.

It is under active development, and was/is used in many game development, so we know it has good performance too.

When used for game development a 2D/3D-Engine is running on top of SDL (for example the Linux version of Quake4 uses SDL but the real work is done by the "id Tech 4" engine). All 'we' know is that these different engines seem to have good performance. You gain nothing by using SDL for OpenGL (especially not speed as SDL just provides direct OpenGL access, same as without SDL). It is used in Game Development because it is cross-plattfrom and can initialize your GL context, take care of the sound and input devices. But the real graphics work is done by some engine on top of it.

So, yes, it is a good lib and used in commercial games but it is not what the OP is looking for. Both GLScene and the castle game engine are better options.

@OP
If the development is less game and more visualization you may also take a look at http://asmoday.sourceforge.net.

R.

Reimar Grabowski wrote

But you still have to learn pure, low level OpenGL to use it.

Ah, you seem to be right. SDL has its own cross-platform 2D API, but for the OpenGL backend the calls are the OpenGL API.

Regards,
- Graeme -