Getting Started with OpenGL and GLUT

OpenGL libraries comes with Visual Studio. So all we have to do is install GLUT. Here is a step by step procedure :

• The latest version (3.7) of GLUT windows binaries can be found at http://www.xmission.com/~nate/glut.html or from a million other places on the web. Name of the zip file is: glut-3.7.6-bin.zip
• Extract the zipfile to some temporary folder.
• Copy glut32.dll file to you your windows System folder. On Win2000/XP its C:\winnt\system. On Win98 its C:\windows\system.
• Copy glut32.lib to <visual studio .NET path>\Vc7\Lib folder. Normally this would be C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET\Vc7\Lib.
• Copy glut.h to <visual studio .NET path>\Vc7\Include\GL. Normally this would be C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET\Vc7\Include\GL

After this you should be all set to do your OpenGL/GLUT proramming. While creating a new project, you do not have to do anything special. Just create a new Win32 console application like you always do(by starting with an empty project).

Try out this simple cube program which opens up a window and draws a simple red cube on the screen. More such simple programs to play with can be found at: http://www.opengl.org/resources/code/

Yogi