An SDK!

Lets face it. In this day and age, I shouldn’t have to go around and “collect” my OpenGL programming resources. A simple “SDK” should be provided. I should be able to get everything I need to start developing OpenGL applications by downloading one file. It should come complete with all of the proper headers, the coresponding OpenGL spec, demo applications, some basic tools (perhaps even tools already available from NVidia, ATI and 3D Labs?), and an initialization library, such as GLEW (anything with the ZLib [or similar] license).

It seems like this would be very simple to provide, and would probably go a long way for popularizing OpenGL; A simple one stop shop for everything you need! Put it on the front page of OpenGL.org, and you’ve got the icing on the proverbial cake. =)

We had already suggested this a long time ago, but it didn’t happen. It would only help newbies.
At the minimum, an ARB endorsed extension loader would have been great.

This page gives info if you are getting started

http://www.opengl.org/resources/faq/getting_started.html

How hard is it to put together an SDK? It would help “newbies”, sure. I would think that includes people familiar with DirectX that have never used OpenGL. It should be just as easy to get started with OpenGL as it is to get started with DirectX. Put yourself in the shoes of an experienced Direct3D programmer that wants to learn OpenGL. When they find that they have to go out of their way to figure out what they need to download and where they need to download it from, they may just think that there is little organization between the ARB members… that there is little oversight over OpenGL as compared to Direct3D. First impressions mean a lot. To think that anything this SIMPLE TO DO wouldn’t be worth the effort is ludicrous.

Kevin B

I think it’s good to have one but the alternative is just as good.
There is a lot of resources out there. The big IHV have GL SDKs nearly 100 MB plus tons of documentation. Many people have created various libraries to go along GL.
Just having a page with links for all these would be good.

OpenAL should be advertized alongside GL. I don’t think there is any links here. These 2 APIs go great together.

just to play the devil’s advocate, a sdk would be kinda peachy. just to have an “all in one”. the ihvs have their respective sdk’s, but they tend to be a tad biased toward their own frameworks and extensions and such.

i like the fact the opengl is more or less community driven, but it’s not like it couldn’t be improved. i don’t know of anything that couldn’t use some improvement. but i guess the problem is that there’s no independent money behind it. so i guess like v-man said a website could fashion a sdk of sorts by just combining the best the community has to offer in one convenient batch of links.

i agree that standardization and uniformity is very helpful when learning something new, especially when you’re new to the subject of graphics in general.

OpenGL doesn’t need an SDK, the API is contained within the h/lib/dll that comes with every copy of Windows and Linux. You can compile and run opengl applications without downloading a thing. To use extensions, you need to download glext.h.
That’s it.
A zip file with some demos/turorials in it is what you’re after. These are available by typing “opengl” and “tuturials” into google.
Have you got broadband?
The internet is a much quicker, easier and up-to-date ‘SDK’ than you could ever download (if you spent hours downloading nvidias opengl sdk last year, you can hit shift-delete on it now because it’s pretty much obsolete now things like FBO replacing pbuffers, VBO replacing VAR etc.).
DirectX absolutely needs an SDK, because the libraries available in, say, the default installation of VC6 are completely out of date, and just won’t work now. You need to download a specially constructed exe which will tear down the entire Windows graphics layer and rebuild it. It needs lots of registry settings to be created, environment variables to be updated etc.etc.
This just isn’t the case with OpenGL.

it has been a decade plus and the only sdk was from sgi (which was obsolete a decade ago). There is an SDK from the extension registry–but it doesn’t include glu.h. I had to grab that from mesa’s cvs repository.

OpenGL is exiled from the visual c studio. visual studio express edition doesn’t not include it, so i uninstall that. visual c toolkit (command line compiler only) doesn’t not have GL libs in its directory, so you need to grab glsdk ffrom the extension registry and missing glu.h from mesa cvs repository.

SUGGESTION: the community now have, in addition to OpenGL and OpenAL, OpenSL, OpenVG, ~ML|GL ES|MAX|Collada, et cetera…SO why not couple them in a so-called “OpenSDK?” There seem to be an explosion of OpenWhatever libs from the ARB+Khronos members.

It would be nice if the libraries works with cygwin and eclipse+cdt. I’ve been try to figure out resolve glut errs in Eclipse+CDT+OpenGL–maybe someone can help me in the beginner’s forum. (PLEASE) -ak

OH YEAH! With Eclipse + CDT + CygWin set up correctly, it would be the best way to reach NOOBs because that would provide us with a variety of programming environment in ONE! This way we can code in Java with JSR231/JOGL and switch perspective to C/C++ on Eclipse and work on C/C++ OpenGL. Com’on, M$ don’t support GL in their compilers anymore. and i would hate to install VC6, you know how uncompliance that is.

Oh, did i mentioned I’m at lost with Eclipse+CDT+CygWin+OpenGL? -ak

All the OpenGL-related information should be gathered in the wiki(does anyone work on it actually?)

An SDK is really not needed(knackered explained why). It would be nice, hovewer, to have a centralised list of OpenGL bindings for different platforms/languages.

hm…checking my linux system, there is about 5-6 MB for libGL, libGLU and libGLcore plus less than 1 MB for the header files.

at msdn.com i found a directx sdk which has a size of 318 MB. freaky! that amount should be enough for a complete windows installation…

overall i agree- i don’t think an ogl sdk is necessary. there are lots of tutorials on the web, and someone who wants to program a computer should be competent to use it and do some googeling. for development tools- windows may not be well equipped, but with a linux distribution you get compilers, editors, …, everything that you need.

I think that examples and links on www.opengl.org pretty much is the OpenGL SDK. The one SDK-like thig I think could help people is the process of accessing OpenGL extension functions. This is more complicated on MS-Windows, which will always have minimal OpenGL support. It makes OpenGL look complex, like “why can’t it just use regular libraries instead of all of this extension stuff?”. A lot of people think that extensions are just the way OpenGL gets updated, rather than being an advanced method of adding custom or ‘pre-release’ features.

I guess I’m really saying that one purpose for an SDK is to give a bit of a head start for MS-Windows developers who are working on a platform that intentionally makes OpenGL look bad.

I think that an SDK issued by the ARB on a quarterly basis is the way to go. it should have header files, libs, glu, glut, documentation and examples.
The documentation should be in an HTML file that can be accessed and browsed across different platforms.
OpenGL is a good API, easy to understand and easy to code for. But to utilize it to its fullest capacity, an SDK with all the info in it will go a long way. :slight_smile:

Why should it have header files, libs, glu and glut?

The header files and libs come with every operating system installation, or at least with the compiler installation. And so does glu.

glut is not a part of OpenGL. It’s long deprecated, and it’s not really usable except for the most simple programs.

Documentation:
http://www.opengl.org/documentation/red_book_1.0/ (for beginners)
http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html (for anyone else)

And if you’re looking for a way where all this is stored at a central location, look at the faq on this page. Also there is a wiki in progress…

It’s very difficult to study OpenGL 2.0 without examples and documentation for all features.Please do it for as at next time because DirectX is more easy to study and use.

what’s OpenGL 2.0? :wink:
seriously, to get some documentation on the recently standardized features of OpenGL just look up (ie. type into google) VBO, FBO, and GLSL. That’s it, if you’re still none the wiser, by all means use D3D9 - better still, use Ogre to hold your hand.
If, however, you’re dealing with engineering datasets, you’ll have to persevere with OpenGL because D3D is just not going to cut it - it’s per-batch cost is way too high.

VBO went into core in 1.5
I’m guessing MadGuy is new to GL and wants to learn from the ground up in which case, download some examples on the web.

Instead of scouring the web with a search engine, I think it is much better to have it all in one place.

All revisions of OpenGL, history, extensions and everything.

All hyperlinked, indexed and even including pop-up tips like with MSDN.

You think I’m joking, no I’m serious. OpenGL really needs some better documentation. For people like me and new comers. We are not all experts that have spent the last ten years on this web site and it’s forums.

A complete and up to date, quick and easy reference would be great. I think it would also greatly reduce the number of problems that get posted on these forums.

All revisions of OpenGL, history, extensions and everything.
What about this site? Especially the “documentation” section. Ok, it doesn’t contain pop-up tips, so you’re right, MSDN is a lot better :stuck_out_tongue:

Who is going to pay for this?
You expect it for free?
Microsoft make money by people buying their operating systems and the applications written for it. Therefore, by providing a CHTML file for D3D they’re encouraging people to use D3D, hence to use their operating system. Therefore, they’re making money from it, some of which they use to pay the poor sods who spent months compiling it.
OpenGL is cross-platform, and nobody makes money from people using it - therefore there’s no financial reward for anyone spending months compiling a CHTML file for it.

What you need to do, if you’re serious about programming in OpenGL, is to buy (the dirtiest of words these days) a copy of the red book. Then, once you’re up and running with standard stuff, buy (yes, spend money twice) the orange book (for shaders).
These books are absolutely beautifully written, thorough, accurate, and accessible.
Heck, I even bought a D3D book years ago when I was starting out - I’d get curvature of the spine learning from those MS CHTML things.

Exactly, GL is more community driven, very much like Linux is community driven so don’t expect pretty things like pop ups. MS is like 5 rich countries in one.

A Wiki is beeing prepared (I should participate on this sometime) that could help in this area of lacking documentation.