[c++] How to use glOrtho() in OpenGL?

Minimal runnable example

glOrtho: 2D games, objects close and far appear the same size:

enter image description here

glFrustrum: more real-life like 3D, identical objects further away appear smaller:

enter image description here

main.c

#include <stdlib.h>

#include <GL/gl.h>
#include <GL/glu.h>
#include <GL/glut.h>

static int ortho = 0;

static void display(void) {
    glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
    glLoadIdentity();
    if (ortho) {
    } else {
        /* This only rotates and translates the world around to look like the camera moved. */
        gluLookAt(0.0, 0.0, -3.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0);
    }
    glColor3f(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f);
    glutWireCube(2);
    glFlush();
}

static void reshape(int w, int h) {
    glViewport(0, 0, w, h);
    glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
    glLoadIdentity();
    if (ortho) {
        glOrtho(-2.0, 2.0, -2.0, 2.0, -1.5, 1.5);
    } else {
        glFrustum(-1.0, 1.0, -1.0, 1.0, 1.5, 20.0);
    }
    glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
}

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
    glutInit(&argc, argv);
    if (argc > 1) {
        ortho = 1;
    }
    glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_SINGLE | GLUT_RGB);
    glutInitWindowSize(500, 500);
    glutInitWindowPosition(100, 100);
    glutCreateWindow(argv[0]);
    glClearColor(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0);
    glShadeModel(GL_FLAT);
    glutDisplayFunc(display);
    glutReshapeFunc(reshape);
    glutMainLoop();
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

GitHub upstream.

Compile:

gcc -ggdb3 -O0 -o main -std=c99 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic main.c -lGL -lGLU -lglut

Run with glOrtho:

./main 1

Run with glFrustrum:

./main

Tested on Ubuntu 18.10.

Schema

Ortho: camera is a plane, visible volume a rectangle:

enter image description here

Frustrum: camera is a point,visible volume a slice of a pyramid:

enter image description here

Image source.

Parameters

We are always looking from +z to -z with +y upwards:

glOrtho(left, right, bottom, top, near, far)
  • left: minimum x we see
  • right: maximum x we see
  • bottom: minimum y we see
  • top: maximum y we see
  • -near: minimum z we see. Yes, this is -1 times near. So a negative input means positive z.
  • -far: maximum z we see. Also negative.

Schema:

Image source.

How it works under the hood

In the end, OpenGL always "uses":

glOrtho(-1.0, 1.0, -1.0, 1.0, -1.0, 1.0);

If we use neither glOrtho nor glFrustrum, that is what we get.

glOrtho and glFrustrum are just linear transformations (AKA matrix multiplication) such that:

  • glOrtho: takes a given 3D rectangle into the default cube
  • glFrustrum: takes a given pyramid section into the default cube

This transformation is then applied to all vertexes. This is what I mean in 2D:

Image source.

The final step after transformation is simple:

  • remove any points outside of the cube (culling): just ensure that x, y and z are in [-1, +1]
  • ignore the z component and take only x and y, which now can be put into a 2D screen

With glOrtho, z is ignored, so you might as well always use 0.

One reason you might want to use z != 0 is to make sprites hide the background with the depth buffer.

Deprecation

glOrtho is deprecated as of OpenGL 4.5: the compatibility profile 12.1. "FIXED-FUNCTION VERTEX TRANSFORMATIONS" is in red.

So don't use it for production. In any case, understanding it is a good way to get some OpenGL insight.

Modern OpenGL 4 programs calculate the transformation matrix (which is small) on the CPU, and then give the matrix and all points to be transformed to OpenGL, which can do the thousands of matrix multiplications for different points really fast in parallel.

Manually written vertex shaders then do the multiplication explicitly, usually with the convenient vector data types of the OpenGL Shading Language.

Since you write the shader explicitly, this allows you to tweak the algorithm to your needs. Such flexibility is a major feature of more modern GPUs, which unlike the old ones that did a fixed algorithm with some input parameters, can now do arbitrary computations. See also: https://stackoverflow.com/a/36211337/895245

With an explicit GLfloat transform[] it would look something like this:

glfw_transform.c

#include <math.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

#define GLEW_STATIC
#include <GL/glew.h>

#include <GLFW/glfw3.h>

static const GLuint WIDTH = 800;
static const GLuint HEIGHT = 600;
/* ourColor is passed on to the fragment shader. */
static const GLchar* vertex_shader_source =
    "#version 330 core\n"
    "layout (location = 0) in vec3 position;\n"
    "layout (location = 1) in vec3 color;\n"
    "out vec3 ourColor;\n"
    "uniform mat4 transform;\n"
    "void main() {\n"
    "    gl_Position = transform * vec4(position, 1.0f);\n"
    "    ourColor = color;\n"
    "}\n";
static const GLchar* fragment_shader_source =
    "#version 330 core\n"
    "in vec3 ourColor;\n"
    "out vec4 color;\n"
    "void main() {\n"
    "    color = vec4(ourColor, 1.0f);\n"
    "}\n";
static GLfloat vertices[] = {
/*   Positions          Colors */
     0.5f, -0.5f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f,
    -0.5f, -0.5f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f,
     0.0f,  0.5f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f
};

/* Build and compile shader program, return its ID. */
GLuint common_get_shader_program(
    const char *vertex_shader_source,
    const char *fragment_shader_source
) {
    GLchar *log = NULL;
    GLint log_length, success;
    GLuint fragment_shader, program, vertex_shader;

    /* Vertex shader */
    vertex_shader = glCreateShader(GL_VERTEX_SHADER);
    glShaderSource(vertex_shader, 1, &vertex_shader_source, NULL);
    glCompileShader(vertex_shader);
    glGetShaderiv(vertex_shader, GL_COMPILE_STATUS, &success);
    glGetShaderiv(vertex_shader, GL_INFO_LOG_LENGTH, &log_length);
    log = malloc(log_length);
    if (log_length > 0) {
        glGetShaderInfoLog(vertex_shader, log_length, NULL, log);
        printf("vertex shader log:\n\n%s\n", log);
    }
    if (!success) {
        printf("vertex shader compile error\n");
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }

    /* Fragment shader */
    fragment_shader = glCreateShader(GL_FRAGMENT_SHADER);
    glShaderSource(fragment_shader, 1, &fragment_shader_source, NULL);
    glCompileShader(fragment_shader);
    glGetShaderiv(fragment_shader, GL_COMPILE_STATUS, &success);
    glGetShaderiv(fragment_shader, GL_INFO_LOG_LENGTH, &log_length);
    if (log_length > 0) {
        log = realloc(log, log_length);
        glGetShaderInfoLog(fragment_shader, log_length, NULL, log);
        printf("fragment shader log:\n\n%s\n", log);
    }
    if (!success) {
        printf("fragment shader compile error\n");
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }

    /* Link shaders */
    program = glCreateProgram();
    glAttachShader(program, vertex_shader);
    glAttachShader(program, fragment_shader);
    glLinkProgram(program);
    glGetProgramiv(program, GL_LINK_STATUS, &success);
    glGetProgramiv(program, GL_INFO_LOG_LENGTH, &log_length);
    if (log_length > 0) {
        log = realloc(log, log_length);
        glGetProgramInfoLog(program, log_length, NULL, log);
        printf("shader link log:\n\n%s\n", log);
    }
    if (!success) {
        printf("shader link error");
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }

    /* Cleanup. */
    free(log);
    glDeleteShader(vertex_shader);
    glDeleteShader(fragment_shader);
    return program;
}

int main(void) {
    GLint shader_program;
    GLint transform_location;
    GLuint vbo;
    GLuint vao;
    GLFWwindow* window;
    double time;

    glfwInit();
    window = glfwCreateWindow(WIDTH, HEIGHT, __FILE__, NULL, NULL);
    glfwMakeContextCurrent(window);
    glewExperimental = GL_TRUE;
    glewInit();
    glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f);
    glViewport(0, 0, WIDTH, HEIGHT);

    shader_program = common_get_shader_program(vertex_shader_source, fragment_shader_source);

    glGenVertexArrays(1, &vao);
    glGenBuffers(1, &vbo);
    glBindVertexArray(vao);
    glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vbo);
    glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(vertices), vertices, GL_STATIC_DRAW);
    /* Position attribute */
    glVertexAttribPointer(0, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 6 * sizeof(GLfloat), (GLvoid*)0);
    glEnableVertexAttribArray(0);
    /* Color attribute */
    glVertexAttribPointer(1, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 6 * sizeof(GLfloat), (GLvoid*)(3 * sizeof(GLfloat)));
    glEnableVertexAttribArray(1);
    glBindVertexArray(0);

    while (!glfwWindowShouldClose(window)) {
        glfwPollEvents();
        glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);

        glUseProgram(shader_program);
        transform_location = glGetUniformLocation(shader_program, "transform");
        /* THIS is just a dummy transform. */
        GLfloat transform[] = {
            0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f,
            0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f,
            0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f,
            0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f,
        };
        time = glfwGetTime();
        transform[0] = 2.0f * sin(time);
        transform[5] = 2.0f * cos(time);
        glUniformMatrix4fv(transform_location, 1, GL_FALSE, transform);

        glBindVertexArray(vao);
        glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 3);
        glBindVertexArray(0);
        glfwSwapBuffers(window);
    }
    glDeleteVertexArrays(1, &vao);
    glDeleteBuffers(1, &vbo);
    glfwTerminate();
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

GitHub upstream.

Compile and run:

gcc -ggdb3 -O0 -o glfw_transform.out -std=c99 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic glfw_transform.c -lGL -lGLU -lglut -lGLEW -lglfw -lm
./glfw_transform.out

Output:

enter image description here

The matrix for glOrtho is really simple, composed only of scaling and translation:

scalex, 0,      0,      translatex,
0,      scaley, 0,      translatey,
0,      0,      scalez, translatez,
0,      0,      0,      1

as mentioned in the OpenGL 2 docs.

The glFrustum matrix is not too hard to calculate by hand either, but starts getting annoying. Note how frustum cannot be made up with only scaling and translations like glOrtho, more info at: https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/a/118848/25171

The GLM OpenGL C++ math library is a popular choice for calculating such matrices. http://glm.g-truc.net/0.9.2/api/a00245.html documents both an ortho and frustum operations.

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