The fun of coding 3D graphics in C++ and OpenGL
There exist several 3D graphics libraries for C++ using OpenGL such as Raylib, OpenSceneGraph, VTK, Magnum, Cinder, OpenFrameworks and many more.
There also game engines using C++ such as Unreal Engine, Godot, CryEngine, Lumberyard and more.
However, my needs for 3d programming have not been for games but for interactive 3d applications mainly in the field of engineering. I have used OpenGL for many years. For my PhD I developed a 3D Scene Graph library, Ivf++, which was a wrapper around OpenGL. It contained a set of nodes for implementing interactive 3D applications, such as ObjectiveFrame a 3D beam analysis application focusing on real-time interaction.
During the last decade OpenGL has evolved and the fixed function pipeline has been deprecated. Modern OpenGL is based on shaders and the programmable pipeline. This has made OpenGL more powerful, but with the cost of complexity and ease of use. This article is about my journey implementing a new 3D graphics library for C++ that is easy to use and at the same time flexible. Ultimately I want to get back to ease of use of the fixed function pipeline but with the power of modern OpenGL.