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author | Timothy Pearson <kb9vqf@pearsoncomputing.net> | 2011-07-10 15:24:15 -0500 |
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committer | Timothy Pearson <kb9vqf@pearsoncomputing.net> | 2011-07-10 15:24:15 -0500 |
commit | bd0f3345a938b35ce6a12f6150373b0955b8dd12 (patch) | |
tree | 7a520322212d48ebcb9fbe1087e7fca28b76185c /doc/opengl-x11-overlays.doc | |
download | qt3-bd0f3345a938b35ce6a12f6150373b0955b8dd12.tar.gz qt3-bd0f3345a938b35ce6a12f6150373b0955b8dd12.zip |
Add Qt3 development HEAD version
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/opengl-x11-overlays.doc')
-rw-r--r-- | doc/opengl-x11-overlays.doc | 132 |
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diff --git a/doc/opengl-x11-overlays.doc b/doc/opengl-x11-overlays.doc new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c31002 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/opengl-x11-overlays.doc @@ -0,0 +1,132 @@ +/**************************************************************************** +** +** ... +** +** Copyright (C) 2005-2008 Trolltech ASA. All rights reserved. +** +** This file is part of the Qt GUI Toolkit. +** +** This file may be used under the terms of the GNU General +** Public License versions 2.0 or 3.0 as published by the Free +** Software Foundation and appearing in the files LICENSE.GPL2 +** and LICENSE.GPL3 included in the packaging of this file. +** Alternatively you may (at your option) use any later version +** of the GNU General Public License if such license has been +** publicly approved by Trolltech ASA (or its successors, if any) +** and the KDE Free Qt Foundation. +** +** Please review the following information to ensure GNU General +** Public Licensing requirements will be met: +** http://trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/licensing/opensource/. +** If you are unsure which license is appropriate for your use, please +** review the following information: +** http://trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/licensing/licensingoverview +** or contact the sales department at sales@trolltech.com. +** +** This file may be used under the terms of the Q Public License as +** defined by Trolltech ASA and appearing in the file LICENSE.QPL +** included in the packaging of this file. Licensees holding valid Qt +** Commercial licenses may use this file in accordance with the Qt +** Commercial License Agreement provided with the Software. +** +** This file is provided "AS IS" with NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, +** INCLUDING THE WARRANTIES OF DESIGN, MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR +** A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Trolltech reserves all rights not granted +** herein. +** +**********************************************************************/ + +/*! + \page opengl-x11-overlays.html + + \title How to use X11 overlays with the Qt OpenGL extension + +X11 overlays are a powerful mechanism for drawing +annotations etc., on top of an image without destroying it, thus saving +a great deal of image rendering time. For more information, consult the highly +recommended book \e{OpenGL Programming for the X Window System} (Mark +Kilgard, Addison Wesley Developers Press 1996). + +\warning From version 5.0 onwards, the Qt OpenGL Extension includes +direct support for the use of OpenGL overlays. For many uses of +overlays, this makes the technique described below redundant. See the +\link opengl-overlay-example.html overlay\endlink example program. The +following is a discussion on how to use non-QGL widgets in overlay +planes. + +In the typical case, X11 overlays can easily be used together with the +current version of Qt and the Qt OpenGL Extension. The following +requirements apply: + +\list 1 +\i Your X server and graphics card/hardware must support overlays. + For many X servers, overlay support can be turned on with + a configuration option; consult your X server installation + documentation. + +\i Your X server must (be configured to) use an overlay visual as the + default visual. Most modern X servers do this, since this has the + added advantage that pop-up menus, overlapping windows etc., will + \e not destroy underlying images in the main plane, thereby + avoiding expensive redraws. + +\i The best (deepest) visual for OpenGL rendering is in the main + plane. This is the normal case. Typically, X servers that support + overlays provide a 24 bit deep TrueColor visual in the main plane, + and an 8 bit PseudoColor (default) visual in the overlay plane. +\endlist + +The provided example program \link opengl-overlay-example.html X11 +overlay\endlink will check for these and report if anything is wrong. +See \link #x11visuals About X11 Visuals\endlink, below for more +information. + + +\section1 How it works + +Given the above, a QGLWidget will by default use the main plane +visual, while all other widgets will use the overlay visual. Thus, we +can place a normal widget on top of the QGLWidget, and do drawing on +it, without destroying the image in the OpenGL window. In other words, +we can use all the drawing capabilities of QPainter to draw the +annotations, rubberbands, etc. For the typical use of overlays, +this is much easier than using OpenGL for rendering the annotations. + +An overlay plane has a specific color called the transparent +color. Pixels drawn in this color will not be visible; instead the +underlying OpenGL image will show through. In the example program +\link opengl-overlay-example.html X11 overlay\endlink, the file +\c main.cpp contains a routine that returns a QColor containing the +transparent color. For the overlay widget, you will typically want to +set the background color to the transparent color, so that the OpenGL +image shows through except where explicitly overpainted. + +Note: to use this technique, you must not use the "ManyColor" or +"TrueColor" ColorSpec for QApplication, because this will force +the normal Qt widgets to use a TrueColor visual, which will typically +be in the main plane, not in the overlay plane as desired. + + + +\target x11visuals +\section1 About X11 visuals + +The utilities directory contains two small programs that can help you +determine the capabilities of your X server. These programs are from +the OpenGL book mentioned above, see utilities/NOTICE for copyright +information. The full set of example programs from this book is +available at \l{ftp://ftp.sgi.com/pub/opengl/opengl_for_x/}. + +\c glxvisuals will list all the GL-capable visuals the X server +provides, together with the depth and other GL-specific information +for each. Note especially the column "lvl"; a number in this column +means the visual is in an overlay plane. + +\c sovinfo will list all available visuals, and provides special +transparency information for overlay visuals. + +The \link opengl-overlay-example.html X11 overlay\endlink example +program will output what visual is used for the normal Qt widgets, and +what visual is used by the QGLWidget. + +*/ |