Book Image

OpenGL Data Visualization Cookbook

Book Image

OpenGL Data Visualization Cookbook

Overview of this book

OpenGL is a great multi-platform, cross-language, and hardware-accelerated graphics interface for visualizing large 2D and 3D datasets. Data visualization has become increasingly challenging using conventional approaches as datasets become larger and larger, especially with the Big Data evolution. From a mobile device to a sophisticated high-performance computing cluster, OpenGL libraries provide developers with an easy-to-use interface to create stunning visuals in 3D in real time for a wide range of interactive applications. This book provides a series of easy-to-follow, hands-on tutorials to create appealing OpenGL-based visualization tools with minimal development time. We will first illustrate how to quickly set up the development environment in Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Next, we will demonstrate how to visualize data for a wide range of applications using OpenGL, starting from simple 2D datasets to increasingly complex 3D datasets with more advanced techniques. Each chapter addresses different visualization problems encountered in real life and introduces the relevant OpenGL features and libraries in a modular fashion. By the end of this book, you will be equipped with the essential skills to develop a wide range of impressive OpenGL-based applications for your unique data visualization needs, on platforms ranging from conventional computers to the latest mobile/wearable devices.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
OpenGL Data Visualization Cookbook
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Introduction


In this chapter, we will introduce OpenGL techniques to visualize another important class of datasets: those involving images or videos. Such datasets are commonly encountered in many fields, including medical imaging applications. To enable the rendering of images, we will discuss fundamental OpenGL concepts for texture mapping and transition to more advanced techniques that require newer versions of OpenGL (OpenGL 3.2 or higher). To simplify our tasks, we will also employ several additional libraries, including OpenGL Extension Wrangler Library (GLEW) for runtime OpenGL extension support, Simple OpenGL Image Loader (SOIL) to load different image formats, OpenGL Mathematics (GLM) for vector and matrix manipulation, as well as OpenCV for image/video processing. To get started, we will first introduce the features of modern OpenGL 3.2 and higher.