C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4

20. 3D Graphics

• Drawing Using OpenGL
• Combining OpenGL and QPainter
• Doing Overlays Using Framebuffer Objects

OpenGL is a standard API for rendering 3D graphics. Qt applications can draw 3D graphics by using the QtOpenGL module, which relies on the system’s OpenGL library. The module provides the QGLWidget class, which we can subclass to develop our own widgets that draw themselves using OpenGL commands. For many 3D applications, this is sufficient. The first section of this chapter presents a simple application that uses this technique to draw a tetrahedron and lets the user interact with it using the mouse.

Starting with Qt 4, it is possible ...