How to pause this opengl program?

Question

I finally managed to get the code to compile in QtCreator on Ubuntu. However when I run it, it runs so fast and the window closes immediately. There are some warnings but no errors in when I compile.

Advice me on how to see if the program actually crashes or just runs very fast.

Here is the code:

This is the main function

// Two-Dimensional Sierpinski Gasket
// Generated using randomly selected vertices and bisection

#include "Angel.h"

const int NumPoints = 5000;

//----------------------------------------------------------------------------

void
init( void )
{
    vec2 points[NumPoints];

    // Specifiy the vertices for a triangle
    vec2 vertices[3] = {
        vec2( -1.0, -1.0 ), vec2( 0.0, 1.0 ), vec2( 1.0, -1.0 )
    };

    // Select an arbitrary initial point inside of the triangle
    points[0] = vec2( 0.25, 0.50 );

    // compute and store N-1 new points
    for ( int i = 1; i < NumPoints; ++i ) {
        int j = rand() % 3;   // pick a vertex at random

        // Compute the point halfway between the selected vertex
        //   and the previous point
        points[i] = ( points[i - 1] + vertices[j] ) / 2.0;
    }

    // Create a vertex array object
    GLuint vao[1];
    glGenVertexArraysAPPLE( 1, vao );
    glBindVertexArrayAPPLE( vao[0] );


    // Create and initialize a buffer object
    GLuint buffer;
    glGenBuffers( 1, &buffer );
    glBindBuffer( GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, buffer );
    glBufferData( GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(points), points, GL_STATIC_DRAW );

    // Load shaders and use the resulting shader program
    GLuint program = InitShader( "vshader21.glsl", "fshader21.glsl" );
    glUseProgram( program );

    // Initialize the vertex position attribute from the vertex shader
    GLuint loc = glGetAttribLocation( program, "vPosition" );
    glEnableVertexAttribArray( loc );
    glVertexAttribPointer( loc, 2, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0,
                           BUFFER_OFFSET(0) );

    glClearColor( 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0 ); // white background
}

//----------------------------------------------------------------------------

void
display( void )
{
    glClear( GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT );     // clear the window
    glDrawArrays( GL_POINTS, 0, NumPoints );    // draw the points
    glFlush();
}

//----------------------------------------------------------------------------

void
keyboard( unsigned char key, int x, int y )
{
    switch ( key ) {
    case 033:
        exit( EXIT_SUCCESS );
        break;
    }
}

//----------------------------------------------------------------------------

int
main( int argc, char **argv )
{
    glutInit( &argc, argv );
    glutInitDisplayMode( GLUT_RGBA );
    glutInitWindowSize( 512, 512 );

    glutCreateWindow( "Sierpinski Gasket" );

    init();

    glutDisplayFunc( display );
    glutKeyboardFunc( keyboard );

    glutMainLoop();
    return 0;
}

This is the Angel.h file:

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//
//  --- Angel.h ---
//
//   The main header file for all examples from Angel 6th Edition
//
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

#ifndef __ANGEL_H__
#define __ANGEL_H__

//----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// 
// --- Include system headers ---
//

#include <cmath>
#include <iostream>

//  Define M_PI in the case it's not defined in the math header file
#ifndef M_PI
#  define M_PI  3.14159265358979323846
#endif

//----------------------------------------------------------------------------
//
// --- Include OpenGL header files and helpers ---
//
//   The location of these files vary by operating system.  We've included
//     copies of open-soruce project headers in the "GL" directory local
//     this this "include" directory.
//

#ifdef __APPLE__  // include Mac OS X verions of headers
#  include <OpenGL/OpenGL.h>
#  include <GLUT/glut.h>
#else // non-Mac OS X operating systems
#  include <GL/glew.h>
#  include <GL/freeglut.h>
#  include <GL/freeglut_ext.h>
#endif  // __APPLE__

// Define a helpful macro for handling offsets into buffer objects
#define BUFFER_OFFSET( offset )   ((GLvoid*) (offset))

//----------------------------------------------------------------------------
//
//  --- Include our class libraries and constants ---
//

namespace Angel {

//  Helper function to load vertex and fragment shader files
GLuint InitShader( const char* vertexShaderFile,
           const char* fragmentShaderFile );

//  Defined constant for when numbers are too small to be used in the
//    denominator of a division operation.  This is only used if the
//    DEBUG macro is defined.
const GLfloat  DivideByZeroTolerance = GLfloat(1.0e-07);

//  Degrees-to-radians constant 
const GLfloat  DegreesToRadians = M_PI / 180.0;

}  // namespace Angel

#include "vec.h"
#include "mat.h"
//#include "CheckError.h"

// #define Print(x)  do { std::cerr << #x " = " << (x) << std::endl; } while(0)

//  Globally use our namespace in our example programs.
using namespace Angel;

#endif // __ANGEL_H__

And here are the Initshader.h include:

#include "Angel.h"

namespace Angel {

// Create a NULL-terminated string by reading the provided file
static char*
readShaderSource(const char* shaderFile)
{
    FILE* fp = fopen(shaderFile, "r");

    if ( fp == NULL ) { return NULL; }

    fseek(fp, 0L, SEEK_END);
    long size = ftell(fp);

    fseek(fp, 0L, SEEK_SET);
    char* buf = new char[size + 1];
    fread(buf, 1, size, fp);

    buf[size] = '\0';
    fclose(fp);

    return buf;
}


// Create a GLSL program object from vertex and fragment shader files
GLuint
InitShader(const char* vShaderFile, const char* fShaderFile)
{
    struct Shader {
    const char*  filename;
    GLenum       type;
    GLchar*      source;
    }  shaders[2] = {
    { vShaderFile, GL_VERTEX_SHADER, NULL },
    { fShaderFile, GL_FRAGMENT_SHADER, NULL }
    };

    GLuint program = glCreateProgram();

    for ( int i = 0; i < 2; ++i ) {
    Shader& s = shaders[i];
    s.source = readShaderSource( s.filename );
    if ( shaders[i].source == NULL ) {
         std::cerr << "Failed to read " << s.filename << std::endl;
        exit( EXIT_FAILURE );
    }

    GLuint shader = glCreateShader( s.type );
    glShaderSource( shader, 1, (const GLchar**) &s.source, NULL );
    glCompileShader( shader );

    GLint  compiled;
    glGetShaderiv( shader, GL_COMPILE_STATUS, &compiled );
    if ( !compiled ) {
         std::cerr << s.filename << " failed to compile:" << std::endl;
        GLint  logSize;
        glGetShaderiv( shader, GL_INFO_LOG_LENGTH, &logSize );
        char* logMsg = new char[logSize];
        glGetShaderInfoLog( shader, logSize, NULL, logMsg );
         std::cerr << logMsg << std::endl;
        delete [] logMsg;

        exit( EXIT_FAILURE );
    }

    delete [] s.source;

    glAttachShader( program, shader );
    }

    /* link  and error check */
    glLinkProgram(program);

    GLint  linked;
    glGetProgramiv( program, GL_LINK_STATUS, &linked );
    if ( !linked ) {
     std::cerr << "Shader program failed to link" << std::endl;
    GLint  logSize;
    glGetProgramiv( program, GL_INFO_LOG_LENGTH, &logSize);
    char* logMsg = new char[logSize];
    glGetProgramInfoLog( program, logSize, NULL, logMsg );
     std::cerr << logMsg << std::endl;
    delete [] logMsg;

    exit( EXIT_FAILURE );
    }

    /* use program object */
    glUseProgram(program);

    return program;
}

}  // Close namespace Angel block

Answer 1

I suspect that the program because runs too quickly because the display function neglects to throttle the GL rendering.

void
display( void )
{
    glClear( GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT );     // clear the window
    glDrawArrays( GL_POINTS, 0, NumPoints );    // draw the points
    glFlush();
}

An OpenGL program must throttle itself, otherwise it will run through the render operations as quickly as possible. The typical way to throttle is to call glX/egl/glutSwapBuffers, which does the following:

1. Implicitly flushes the GL pipeline (that is, glFlush).
2. Sends a message to the window manager to to display what you rendered.
3. If the window manager detects that the app has too many outstanding swapBuffer requests, then the application will block until the outstanding requests have been satisified. Usually, the window manager can satisfy no more than one swapBuffer request per vertical retrace of the screen, which is usually 60 per second.

So, you need to replace the call to glFlush with glutSwapBuffers. That will cause display() to get called no more than 60 times a second, if all else if configured correctly.

CAUTION: glutSwapBuffers will do what I described only if your GL application is double-buffered. When an application initializes GL, it should always request to be double-buffered unless it has a good reason. You application does not request to be double-buffered. You need to replace the call to glutInitDisplayMode( GLUT_RGBA ) in main() with `glutIinit

Answer 2

This program is written in a way, that it will terminate on its own account only in the case of a failure. It will print an error message when this happens. I suggest you run it from a terminal, so that you can see the output (i.e. don't just double-click the produced binary).