Testglobe

Cross-platform demo program to display a 3d globe on different APIs and hardware. Only OpenGL/GLUT is currently implemented. Provisions are there for color mapping but are incomplete - the texture is stored in an 8-bit (to 24-bit) colormap.

Out of the box, the default mode is texture mapping off, highest resolution sphere, which is likely not going to be the most performant on older systems. Note that it still appears texture mapped, however it is all flat shaded single color quads mapped to the texture of earth by the program itself, rather than texture mapping per se through the graphical API and hardware. Adjust as needed per the Interface section below.

Running on macOS (OS X)

Interface

• keys 1-5 adjust number of faces of globe
• mouse spins globe
• a key toggles auto-rotate / benchmark mode
• o key toggles on-screen display
• t key toggles texture mapping
• esc key exits immediately

Planned drivers

• IBM PGC hardware
• IRIS GL
• OpenGL
• PHIGS
• Sun XGL
• IBM Adapter Interface? VBE/AF? QuickDraw? Amiga? others?

Build notes

cosf and sinf

If you don't have cosf and sinf (some old Unixes) define NO_SINF as in the Makefile example.

OpenGL

OpenGL is currently written to support a 24-bit (true color) desktop. It would not be hard to adjust this but it seems unlikely that there is much 8-bit 3D hardware with OpenGL.

GLUT is required. If your system did not include GLUT out of the box you may have to hunt around for it:

• Linux: sudo apt-get install freeglut3-dev
• Solaris:
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20010726192034/http://reality.sgi.com/opengl/glut3/glut-3.7b.sparc_solaris_64.tar.gz
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20010726175006/http://reality.sgi.com/opengl/glut3/glut-3.7b.sparc_solaris.tar.gz

If you don't have glGenerateMipmap define NO_GENMIPMAP as in the Makefile example.

Xcode

No .xcodeproj is provided at this time (as of v0.1), however testglobe was built for macOS with Xcode. This will be provided at some point in the future.

Known issues

• Linux or Mesa OpenGL seems to have an issue with drawing text when texturing is enabled.

Version history

v0.2 (in development)

• Add XGL driver (in progress)
• Add one-button benchmark (in progress)
• Add FPS counter (complete)
• Add auto-rotation feature (complete)
• Change all comments to C style (complete)
• [bugfix] Disable texture mapping during drawing of bitmap text in OpenGL for Mesa quirk (complete)

v0.1

First release, OpenGL/GLUT only. Provide binaries for several platforms.