OpenGL ES 2.0 on the iPhone 3GS
On June 8th, 2009 at the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) the new iPhone 3G S was announced. Apple confirmed that this new generation of iPhone would support OpenGL ES 2.0. Meanwhile, Apple made available to developers a seed version of the iPhone SDK 3.0 that includes support for OpenGL ES 2.0. The new iPhone SDK allows developers to write application for the iPhone 3G S that use OpenGL ES 2.0 for rendering 3D graphics.
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Using DirectX in Windows Forms
Windows Forms is a Microsoft technology that provides a clean and easy framework for building graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and is both extensible and componentized. However, it is sometimes desirable to have a rich 3D user interface to display 3D data or to allow the user to interact in 3D. DirectX, another Microsoft technology, is a graphics framework with support for 2D and 3D graphics, which supplies an abstraction layer between low-level system components (such as drivers) and high-level applications (such as a GUI or a game). This document will discuss the process of hosting DirectX inside of a Windows Forms application in order to provide seamless integration between the two frameworks for use in GUIs that may be graphics intensive.
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Introducing the XNA Framework and XNA Game Studio Express
Most developers I know decided to enter the computer field and specifically programming because of computer games. Game development can be one of the most challenging disciplines of software engineering-it can also be the most rewarding! Never before has it been possible for the masses to create games for a game console, much less a next generation game console. We are coming in on the ground floor of a technology that is going to experience tremendous growth. Microsoft is leading the way into how content will be created for game consoles. Soon other game console manufacturers will be jumping at a way to allow the public to create content for their machines. The great news for the Xbox 360 is that Microsoft has spent so much time over the years creating productive and stable development environments for programmers. We will be installing one of Microsoft’s latest integrated development environments (IDEs) in this chapter. Before we get to that, let’s take a look at the technology we discuss in this book-XNA.
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GPU programming using .NET languages
Our project, which is called IL Shader, allows writing vertex and fragment programs using general purpose programming languages on .NET platform. Our project is based on three-stage translation. First, MSIL bytecode is translated to assembly language of abstract machine with vector registers. Then we perform some optimization and finally translate abstract machine code to one of assembly language shaders (currently DirectX pixel and vertex shaders). We provide infrastructure that allows using .NET classes as shaders. This project is supported by Microsoft Research grant.
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Programming .NET Windows Applications Drawing and GDI+
The designers of .NET, and especially of Visual Studio .NET, clearly had in mind a model in which you could write sophisticated Windows Applications using only the controls available in the Toolbox. This approach is very successful, and many Windows programmers will never need to go beyond the Toolbox and forms model for building powerful user interfaces. As discussed elsewhere in this book, the Toolbox includes controls for displaying data (labels, DataGrids, Calendars, listboxes, etc.) as well as for offering the user choices (radio buttons, checkboxes, listboxes, etc.) and for gathering data (text boxes, etc.) In addition, several controls and components manage date and time (Timer, etc.) or the form itself (splitter, etc.).
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