Wire framing

can someone please explain how to wire frame a sphere ? I know the sphere has this parametric equation but I don’t know how to use that to build a sphere. also how do I decide how many “slices” do I need to make it look good enough ?

It would be just a bunch of circles and the equation for a circle is
x = cos(angle)
y = sin(angle)
and angle goes from 0 to 2Pi.

Or, just use gluSphere and render in wireframe.
Or, use my libs glhSpheref2 and make a VBO/IBO with it.

Depends on what resolution you feel good. More slices => higher resolution.

You may also use NURBS - control surface mesh joined together at ends.

You can too use a simple relation such as numsclices = constant * radius for to have more slices when the radius of the sphere increase
(where constant can be a value adapted for the resolution / zooming)