PyOpenGL rendering optimization

Question

I am looking for an optimization of my code, which print a Planet. Actually, I want to rotate my camera to see the different parts of my planet, but it is really slow and long.

Here is a part of my pyOpenGL code, which print my differents objects:

def _DrawGLScene(self):
    if not self.printed:
        glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT)
        glLoadIdentity()
    # Camera movements
    glTranslatef(0.0, 0.0, self.move_z)
    glRotatef(self.rx, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0)
    glRotatef(self.ry, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0)
    glRotatef(self.rz, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0)
    # Print objects
    if not self.printed:
        self.planet.draw()
        self.printed = True
    glutSwapBuffers()

The method self.planet.draw() only draw a Triangle object list with there own draw_triangle method defined as that:

def draw_triangle(self):
    glBegin(GL_POLYGON)
    glColor3f(self.color_a[0], self.color_a[1], self.color_a[2])
    glVertex3f(self.point_a[0], self.point_a[1], self.point_a[2])
    glColor3f(self.color_b[0], self.color_b[1], self.color_b[2])
    glVertex3f(self.point_b[0], self.point_b[1], self.point_b[2])
    glColor3f(self.color_c[0], self.color_c[1], self.color_c[2])
    glVertex3f(self.point_c[0], self.point_c[1], self.point_c[2])
    glEnd()
    return

When I rotate the camera, I have to redraw all the triangles, which is really slow for something like 100,000 triangles. How can I optimize the usage of OpenGL?

Reto Koradi · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-26 16:08:58Z

There are various levels of optimization you can use.

A very simple change that might already help you quite a bit is that you should not put glBegin(..) and glEnd() around each triangle. It might also be beneficial to use GL_TRIANGLES instead of GL_POLYGON as the primitive type. It sounds like your code structure currently looks like this:

draw_triangle
    glBegin(GL_POLYGON)
    // specify colors, vertices
    glEnd()

draw
    loop over triangles
        draw_triangle

What you should do instead is this:

draw_triangle
    // specify colors, vertices

draw
    glBegin(GL_TRIANGLES)
    loop over triangles
        draw_triangle
    glEnd()

To take the whole thing to the next level, you need to look into more modern approaches. What you are currently using, with calls like glBegin, glEnd, glVertex is mostly referred to as "immediate mode" drawing, and is deprecated in newer OpenGL versions.

If you search for terms like "vertex buffer objects" (mostly abbreviated "VBO") and "vertex array objects" ("VAO"), you should be able to find good tutorials on how to use those features. You will be using calls like glGenBuffers, glBindBuffer, glGenVertexArrays, glBindVertexArray, glVertexAttribPointer, etc. They will allow you to make your drawing much more efficient.

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