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<title>QGLViewer - General FAQ</title>
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<h1>QGLViewer - General FAQ</h1>
<center>See also the <a href="techFaq.html">Technical FAQ</a></center>
<h2>What is libQGLViewer ?</h2>
libQGLViewer is a GPL free software C++ library which lets you
quickly start the development of a new 3D application. It is designed for 3D developers, who can
display and move around a 3D scene by simply providing the openGL orders that define their 3D
geometry. The viewer is designed to be as general as possible and is not designed for a specific 3D
application.
<h2>What is <i>not</i> libQGLViewer ?</h2>
libQGLViewer is <i>not</i> a 3D viewer that can be used directly to view 3D scenes in various formats
(well, there is a 3dsViewer example, but it is just a proof of concept). It
is more likely to be the starting point for the coding of such a viewer.
<h2>What is the difference with glut ?</h2>
<a href="http://www.opengl.org/developers/documentation/glut.html">Glut</a> eases the creation of an
OpenGL window and lets you implements your own mouse and keyboard callback functions. In that sense,
it is very comparable to the <code>Qt::QGLWidget</code> class functionnalities.
<br/>
However, libQGLViewer is a higher level API, it is designed to create openGL <i>3D viewers</i>.
These default callback functions are already implemented and the mouse can intuitively be used to
move the camera (or any object of the scene) with no extra code needed. Simple applications only
have to define the <code>draw()</code> function to get a functionnal viewer. Although
adapted for most applications, the default handlers can be customized if needed.
<h2>What are the main features ?</h2>
libQGLViewer provides some useful classical functionnalities such as : a camera trackball,
screenshot saving, mouse manipulated frames, stereo display, camera point of view saving, full
screen display, keyFrames paths and much more. See the <a href="features.html">features page</a> for
a more exhaustive listing.
<h2>Why is it based on Qt ?</h2>
As mentionned above, <code>glut</code> and the <code>Qt::QGLWidget</code> class provide similar
openGL window creation facilities with a callback framework. The clean <code>Qt</code> object
oriented design, the powerful GUI creation tools it provides and some of its functionnalities
(framebuffer grabbing, image format abstration...) made us adopt Qt.
<h2>Why is Glut needed then ?</h2>
Glut is required only if your Qt version is lower than 3.1. It provides text drawing functionnalities
that were missing until Qt 3.1.
<h2>Who should use this library ?</h2>
Anyone who needs to visualize a 3D scene. libQGLViewer is currently used by Computer Graphics
research labs, industrials or game designers. Note however that it is not designed for critical
real-time applications (namely games), as it could benefit from some optimizations (that were not
performed in order to keep the library versatile). It is however a very good debugging and
prototyping tool in these cases.
<br/>
libQGLViewer also has a strong pedagological interest, as it allows students to very quickly develop
their application and to focus on <i>what</i> is drawned instead of <i>how</i> to make the computer
draw it.
<h2>How should I start ?</h2>
The main goal of libQGLViewer is to allow a student to have a complete 3D viewer application in less
than five minutes. Once the library is <a href="download.html">installed</a>, the best way to
achieve this challenge is to start from one of the provided <a
href="examples/index.html">examples</a> (Windows users, see the <a
href="examples/index.html">examples</a> page) :
<pre>
> cp -r /usr/share/doc/QGLViewer/examples/simpleViewer ~/
> cd simpleViewer
> qmake
> make
> simpleViewer
</pre>
Your first program should execute and you can start extending it. However, before you start
coding, you should <a href="intro.html">discover the principles</a> of the library and <a
href="commented.html">read a commented version</a> of this example.
<p>
Other questions can be sent by
<a href="mailto:Gilles.Debunne@imag.fr">e-mail</a>
and will be added to this page. See also the <a href="techFaq.html">Technical FAQ</a> page.
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<i>Last modified on Thursday, February 5, 2004.</i>
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