Chapter 6. Porting to VR Juggler from GLUT

Table of Contents

Window Creation and Management
The Initialize, Draw, and Frame Routines
In GLUT
In VR Juggler
Getting Input from Devices
In GLUT
In VR Juggler
Configuration
In GLUT
In VR Juggler
Important Notes
Shared Memory
OpenGL Context-Specific Data
Source Code
The Form of a Basic GLUT Program
The Form of a Basic VR Juggler Program

In this chapter, we give some methods for porting an application written with GLUT to VR Juggler. Throughout, we compare and contrast the techniques used by VR Juggler and GLUT, and we translate concepts familiar to GLUT programmers into VR Juggler terms.

Window Creation and Management

In VR Juggler, window creation is done behind the scenes based on configuration file settings. There are two display types: Surface and Simulator. A Surface Display can be put into three modes: stereo, right eye, or left eye. Most interesting is the stereo mode. Stereo mode requires special hardware to display stereo, and it creates the most immersive experience. A Simulator Display is special because it emulates an active VR system. It can show the all active user head positions and orientation, any active devices such as gloves or wands, and any Surface Displays. The simulator window is nice for debugging tracking systems and for visualizing configured Surface Displays.