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 transition to an increasingly powerful and ubiquitous computing platform by demonstrating how to visualize data on the latest mobile devices, from smart phones to tablets, using OpenGL for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES). As mobile devices become more ubiquitous and with their increasing computing capability, we now have an unprecedented opportunity to develop novel interactive data visualization tools using high-performance graphics hardware directly integrated into modern mobile devices.

OpenGL ES plays an important role in standardizing the 2D and 3D graphics APIs to allow the large-scale deployment of mobile applications on embedded systems with various hardware settings. Among the various mobile platforms (predominantly Google Android, Apple iOS, and Microsoft Windows Phone), the Android mobile operating system is currently one of the most popular ones. Therefore, in this chapter, we will focus primarily on the development of an Android-based application...