GL4newLISP

- January 6, 2009: the OpenGL, GLU and freeglut contexts have been updated for newLisp10. Also some of the demoprograms below were updated.

- October 29, 2007: Newdep created a very cool OpenGL binding using Ygl. The link is here.

- September 28, 2006: updated the MUI demo programs so they run with newLisp 8.9.0.

- May 20, 2006: the OpenGL website has reorganized, so some links did not work anymore. These have been updated.

This page contains a complete port of the GL Utility Toolkit or GLUT library for newLisp. The GLUT library originally was created by Mark Kilgard, and facilitates the programmer to create windows with GL canvasses, to capture keyboard and mouse signals, and also to register callbacks and create menus.

The original GLUT library is open source, but carries a license which does not allow anybody to change anything in the source. Furthermore it has no possibility to create a binding to an interpreted language like newLisp. Therefore I decided to use freeGLUT instead, which is a complete open source and GPL replacement of the original library.

To use the GLUT binding for newLisp, only two files are needed: the freeglut.lsp context file, and the freeglut library. These can be downloaded at the next section.

As you may see, this page is not very beautifull. However, I hope it provides easy access to the GL port for newLisp.

Enjoy the port and don't hesitate to report bugs back to me (remove the 'nospam').

• The GLUT context for Linux and Win32: freeglut.lsp


• The precompiled GLUT library for Linux: freeglut.so
• The precompiled GLUT library for Win32: freeglut.dll


• The GL context for Linux and Win32: GL.lsp
• The GLU context for Linux and Win32: GLU.lsp

The programs below work both on Linux and Win32 platforms. Take a look into the sourcecode to see how GL, GLU and GLUT can be used with newLisp.

• gears.lsp - ported from the Mesa demos Updated for newLisp10

• gamma.lsp - ported from the Mesa demos Updated for newLisp10

• spin.lsp - ported from the Mesa demos Updated for newLisp10

• steam.lsp - ported from the OpenGL contributed examples Updated for newLisp10

• rings.lsp - ported from the OpenGL contributed examples

• bitfont.lsp - ported from the GLUT distribution examples

• blender.lsp - ported from the GLUT distribution examples Updated for newLisp10

• gldemo.lsp - ported from my own newLisp GL demo

• SimpleDraw.lsp - ported from the book by Sam Buss.

• SimpleAnim.lsp - ported from the book by Sam Buss.

• Solar.lsp - ported from the book by Sam Buss. Updated for newLisp10

• mui_test.lsp - ported from the Micro User Interface (MUI) demo program.

• chat.lsp - my own creation with the Micro User Interface (MUI).

• freeglut-devel.tar.gz (208870 bytes)

Compile instructions: unzip and untar the package, go to the 'src/mui/lib' directory first to compile the MUI library. Then go back to the '/src' directory to compile the complete freeglut library.

In Linux, compile with 'make -f Makefile.linux'. In Win32, compile with 'make -f Makefile.mingw'.

• Official GLUT docs
• FreeGLUT specs
• Micro User Interface (MUI)

• Q: My GLUT program runs too fast!
  A: In your idle callback, add a sleep. A (sleep 1) is in most cases sufficient.


• Q: In Windows it takes a long time for my program to start!
  A: You can try to download these generic OpenGL DLL's and put them in the same directory as your newLisp program. This is the MESA 6.4 open source implementation of OpenGL, and probably will run a little bit slower than the optimized driver for your graphics card. But the DLL's will load faster.

• Nested callbacks will not always be processed in time due to the interpreted nature of newLisp programs. It is therefore recommended to avoid callbacks within callbacks.
• There can be a maximum of 8 (sub-)windows in one program.
• With MUI currently a maximum of 32 callbacks can be registered.

• Bug #1: Some of the demo programs crash in Windows. <SOLVED> at oct 31, 2005 - new freeglut.dll.
• Bug #2: The 'gluLookAt' function in the GLU context does not work. <SOLVED> at nov 18, 2005 - updated the GLU context.

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Last updated at January 6, 2009 - © Peter van Eerten.