OpenGL Layer Planes

[algraham]

I am developing an OpenGL application with Intel Fortran 9.0. I would like to use OpenGL layer planes, but Ido not seem to have that capability on my machine (i.e. I can't find a pixel format that supports layer planes). I am confused about where this capability comes from.Can anyone tell me whether layer planes are a feature of the display hardware, or areprovided by the implementation of OpenGL that I have? Would upgrading to the latest version of Intel Fortranbe the solution?

[Steven_L_Intel1]

The OpenGL implementation is provided by Windows (with assist from graphics drivers.) Intel Fortran provides bindings to the OS functionality. Is there some particular type or constant you do not find defined? I am not an OpenGL expert but have played with some samples.

[Steven_L_Intel1]

A Google search revealed that layer planes are a Microsoft extension. From what I can tell, the necessary declarations are in module IFOPNGL. See here for Microsoft's description.

[algraham]

Thanks for your reply. My implementation of OpenGL does provide the functions that I need. However, when I enumerate the pixel formats (following the advice in the Microsoft post) none of the formats appears to support layer planes. That is, for all pixel formats on my machine, the bReserved member of the PIXELFORMATDEACRIPTOR is always zero, indicating that the number of available layer planes is zero. If layer planes arepurely a hardware feature, then it looks like I don't have it. I was hoping that there might be a software solution.

[Al_Worth]

I'm not an openGL programmer, but I've used a lot of programs that use OGL and over the years have learned a bit about the videocard/driver requirements. You are probably correct that your "machine" doesn't support layer planes, however it could be simply that your videocard driver software doesn't support them. The mantra regarding OGL issues from CAD vedors is "do you have the latest drivers?". Of course, if your video card is an older one with limited capability in hardware, there may not be a driver that does layers either. It may be, however, that a hundred bucks or so could get you a more recent card that can support them. There's a lot more capability at the lower price points than there used to be. The pricey items now are on-card dedicated video memory (64Meg used to be a big deal, now its gigabytes) and frame rates with a lot of fancy stuff going on.Like texturing and other things I don't quite understand.

There's a nice little free openGL capability evaluation and standards adherence checker called "glview" available here:

http://www.realtech-vr.com/glview/

This will tell you pretty quickly and easily exactly what your machine's openGl can do.

[algraham]

Thanks very much for pointing me toGLView- a very handy tool. However, it indicates that I do not have layer plane capability and there are no driver updates available. I will have to look into getting a better graphics card.