JOGL Documentation and Tutorials

OpenGL Development JOGL Development
#1

Hello there! Having almost completed my first degree in Computer Science at the italian university of Bari, I have to start working on my thesis. I would like to do something regarding OpenGL, and my teacher suggested me to find which implementation of OpenGL in Java was the best. Just so you know, the overall argument of the thesis will be something having to do with information visualization (we have not yet decided).

Anyway I found out that the best implementation of OpenGL for Java was… OpenGL4Java but right now it’s defunct and JOGL has taken its place. So JOGL seems to be the right choice, but I would like to know where I can find some tutorials and documentation regarding JOGL… because If I can’t find any information we’ll probably have to switch to a C++ implementation (I presume that C++ documentation is more common).

The question is… what should I do to learn the ropes of JOGL? Can I just learn everything, just by reading the source code of the demos and the javadoc file? How did you learn JOGL?

Thanks in advance.

#2

heh, someone else using it for a Comp Sci project :slight_smile:

I ended up choosing Jogl since i need lots of GUI widgets and so using Swing is a big help. Otherwise I would have gone with the set of bindings included in LWJGL (see the forum just a little further down).

Pretty much all C++ documentation is still relevant, very little actually changes (typically only pointers change to arrays, which should be obvious). The main thing that changes is canvas creation, which you can see in the demos. The gears demo is a good one to start from.

#3

Thanks! Those tutorials will be very useful!

I have just a question to ask: is there a way to have a GlCanvas display area and some swing components (that will be used to manipulate the objects displayed) in the same GUI?

I tried adding a Jpanel in a JFrame and so far so good (I can see the border type I setted, for example) but If I add another Jpanel for example (I’m using the GUI designer of JBuilder) as soon as I launch the application I can only see the JPanel that contains the canvas… the other Jpanel disappears.

I suppose this is something having to do with the GL Reshape method (I’m using the code contained in the Nehe lessons).

How can I solve this? Are there any examples of Swing/Jogl applications? Thanks again!

EDIT: it was something having to do with the layout managers. If I use a “null” layout I can see the other components but they seem to have the AWT look and feel. Can’t you have the Swing L&F?