CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++winapiopengl
rxantos
rxantos

Reputation: 1849

How do I render a win32 window to an opengl texture?

I want to be able to render a win32 control inside an OpenGL texture. In order to be able to 3d transform it. Specifically I want to embed Internet explorer to show webpages and video inside a 3D transformed window.

How do I render a win32 window to a texture in a fast enough way (I need to keep 60 fps)?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 1118

Answers (1)

Acorn
Acorn

Reputation: 26066

There are a few ways you can go about it. In all cases, you will need to fetch a device context (DC) from the target window (GetDC, GetDCEx).

Then, you can either read the pixels directly (GetPixel); or blit the contents into your own DC (BitBlt) and then access that (e.g. GetDIBits).

Since you want to "embed" Internet Explorer, and by that you probably mean keeping its window hidden; you will want to consider how to make the above work on windows that are not visible, partially visible, etc. Consider as well your Windows version and/or whether the DWM might be disabled (and therefore the content of a window may not be available). Take a look at PrintWindow to force a WM_PAINT/WM_PRINT.

One small MSDN guide that can introduce you to all this and has a full example is: Capturing an Image.

In any case, you can always go for an alternative solution by embedding some other browser/engine as a library (e.g. Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF), Qt's WebEngine, Electron...).

Upvotes: 5

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