GLScene

About

GLScene is an OpenGL based 3D library its initially written for Delphi at time running in C++ Builder,Kylix,Delphi and Lazarus

Its main caracteristics are :

Scene description

• hierarchical objects structure, with as many objects as memory allows, easily extendable
• interactive scene management (numerous Delphi experts)
• easy to use rotation and movement functions for each object
• predefined objects (all standards from cube to teapot to sprite), easily extendable
• structural objects (dummy cube, proxy object) for manageing composite objects
• procedural objects (heightfield, revolution solids, pipes, tesselators...)
• support for 2D and 1D objects (sprites, lines with spline support) fully integrated
• HUD objects (sprites rendered in 2D coordinates)
• Utility objects (grids, skydome, arrows...)
• support classes for directly accessing OpenGL
• camera and light objects that can be used anywhere in a scene objects hierarchy
• behaviour objects can be attached to objects for animation purposes, easily extendable
• per-object special effects (before/after object rendering and scene after-effects), easily *extendable
• support for particle systems, any object or object structure can be a particle
• 3D Studio file import with automatic and precise normal vector calculation (using the given *smoothing groups of the file) and texture coordinate import
• Other imported formats : OBJ/OBJF, SMD, MD2, STL, TIN, PLY

Materials

• easy to use, optimized, material object
• material library to share and reuse materials
• ambient, diffuse, emission, specular and shininess support
• support of blending modes (transparency, additive...)
• alpha-channel auto-generation
• support for OpenGL texture formats, including compressed ones (DXT, S3TC etc.)
• generic plug-in shaders support
• High-level Cg shaders support classes
• polymorphic image support for texturing (allows many formats as well as procedural textures), easily extendable
• more than 150 predefined colors like clrCornflowerBlue or clrCoolCopper (easily extendable) *in addition to standard colors and direct RGBA specifications
• easily to use texture movement and scaling properties, independently from texture coordinates
• 32 bits Bitmap support class

Rendering

• automatically uses the hardware OpenGL driver if available
• a well working camera model using focal length and targeting
• multiple viewers for one or more scenes, easy change of view through camera selection
• fog and depth-of-view support
• render to a file, a bitmap or to the printer in any color and pixel resolution
• full screen support with dynamic resolution changes
• reflections and mirror effects
• dynamic shadow casting
• high-performance scene-wide transparent particles system support
• automatic frustrum culling (hierarchical or per-object)

Animation

• propagation of time progression events
• skeletal animation (multiple bones per vertex)
• frame interpolation and morph targets
• easily extendable Behaviours
• dynamic physics : inertia, acceleration, damping and force application
• automatic, realtime scene cadenceing

Interface

• easy-to-use functions to determine picked objects
• helper functions for camera movements
• helper functions for picked object's translation
• helper functions for converting between screen and world coordinates, raycasting

Utilities

• optimized geometry functions and utilities (vector, quaternion and matrix...)
• cubic spline support functions and class
• mesh manipulation and optimization (stripification, vertex-cache awareness, etc.)
• component to make full-featured screen-saver in a few clicks
• precise frame speed determination
• asynchronous timer (multi-threaded)
• joystick support
• asynchronous keyboard access, keymap support

Author

Author: initially Mike Lischke
at time maintained by Eric Grange
LCL Port: Christian Ulrich

Download

The latest stable release can be found on the Lazarus CCR Files page.

Change Log

• 16.07.05 GLScene 0.9.X Port
• look at GLScene Sourceforge Account for complete Changelog

Status: Beta

Installation

• Create the directory lazarus\components\GLScene
• On this directory, unzip the files from the zip file
• Open lazarus
• Open {lazarusDir}/lazarus.pp and add cthreads to the uses Section (see readme-lazarus from the package)
• Open the package .lpk with Component/Open package file (.lpk)
• Click on Compile
• Click on Install

Hint: sometimes an Error "GLGraphics not found" occurs. Don't worry, just do Tools->Build Lazarus again and it should be ok.

Help

Can be found at Main GLScene Page