printing - Graphics

bala wrote:

> We are devloping a CAD like application using vc++6.0 with opengl.
> In this application we are importing a text file which is exported from
> some software like (ECAM) and draw the design based on details present
>
> in the imported file.In this application we have to support printing
> (more spcifically PDF output) also.
> please suggest me some ideas to accomplish the specified task

You could render into an offscreen buffer and read the pixmap back, or you
could use osmesa (offscreen rendering version of mesa).

bala wrote:

> We are devloping a CAD like application using vc++6.0 with
> opengl. In this application we are importing a text file which
> is exported from
> some software like (ECAM) and draw the design based on details
> present
>
> in the imported file.In this application we have to support
> printing (more spcifically PDF output) also.
> please suggest me some ideas to accomplish the specified task

If you're not aiming for photo printing where each pixel must be
set individually but want to print some construction drawings,
taking the result of OpenGL's rasterizing process is probably
suboptimal. A better approach is to perform some good old hidden
line/surface elimination algorithm on the input to print real
vector data. This has the advantages, that processing the print
file is much faster, there's no limited in the printing
resolution and the PDF will be a lot of smaller.

Wolfgang Draxinger
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