OpenGL

Tips, Tricks and Tribulations

I put together a presentation for the local iOS Meetup group on the basics of using OpenGL. This presentation covers the following concepts:

• Pros and Cons of Using OpenGL
• OpenGL Basics on the iPhone
• The Camera
• Use of a Frustum
• Object Picking Concepts
• Rendering, Moving, Scaling and Rotating
• Texturing in OpenGL
• Animating

I also created a sample project that builds out a small amount of infrastructure to manage all this. It extends the standard XCode4 OpenGL template project to include the above topics. The project uses OpenGL ES 1.1 so all the 2.0 stuff has been removed to reduce clutter.

You can download the zipped up presentation and project here:

• Project (123 KB)
• Presentation (pdf) (3.7 MB)
• Presentation (zip-pdf) (3.5 MB)
• Presentation (zip-key) (3.7 MB)

Let me know if you have any questions or comments about this content. I can be contacted at support@minivillemedia.com. You can also check out my apps in the app store. I have built several apps based on OpenGL and have developed my own OpenGL storybook engine that I use to create childrens books. All of them have full free ad supported versions so you can take a look at some simple OpenGL driven apps. Search for Miniville or take a look here to see my list of applications and links to the app store.

I hope you find this presentation useful and perhaps it will save you some time spinning up on the use if OpenGL on the iPhone.

Enjoy,
John Jumper