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Important Notice:
Development of CsGL has essentially stopped. CsGL has proven to be stable and good enough for most applications, however, it still has some known issues.

However, the work has been continued by Randy Ridge, author of the CsGL Examples. He has started from scratch and rewritten the needed libraries. These new libraries, remove the need for the unmanaged DLL, fix a few nasty function call issues, adds cross-platform/runtime (Linux/Mono) support, CLS compliance, and other goodies. I suggest you migrate to these newer libraries.

Check them out at http://www.randyridge.com/Tao/Default.aspx

Some link to CsGL users:
Here is a list long asked for that I will, at least, try to update as soon as required now.

Now it's empty as I lost the list I should put here, but feel free to contact me through sourceforge.

April 30, 2003

Randy's put up a new build of the Tao.OpenGl library and added the redbook examples, they are available from here: http://www.randyridge.com/Tao/Default.aspx

April 18, 2003

New library available here: http://www.randyridge.com/Tao/Default.aspx

April 10, 2003

As you may have noticed Microsoft has indeed launched their .NET Framework 1.1 final, available here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/. I mentioned the library would be updated when this is out. However, I'm still waiting on Visual Studio .NET 2003 to be released. I expect it to appear on MSDN in the next couple days, then I need to do some further testing. I expect the first release of the library to be towards the beginning of next week. Of course, two hours after that post it shows up on MSDN. :) Expect a release on Tuesday or Wednesday, though the website probably won't be really working.

April 6, 2003

Forum died, don't ask. Working on getting something going. Bare with us. Use the SourceForge forum until then if you like.

On a brighter note the new library is moving along smoothly, should be ready to go when Microsoft releases 1.1 final. Lots of good stuff, GLUT works great, you can run on Mono, you can use your CLS-compliant language of choice, documentation, examples, yada yada. Also, I'll be throwing together a new website soon (sooner than planned with latest problems). Anyway, that's all.

Features

CsGL (C sharp Graphics Library) implements a wrapper for the quite well known and powerful C-library OpenGL allowing any .NET language make use of it.
It feature:
  • OpenGL 1.4 API and this list of extension
  • an extension "generator" in <csgl>/extras/generator/generator.exe.
  • a font "engine", the CsGL.OpenGL.GDITextureFont. Demonstrated in the <csgl>/examples/CS/gdifont.cs
  • mouse and keyboard classes (CsGL.Util.Mouse & CsGL.Util.Keyboard) for simplified event management. Demonstrated in <csgl>/examples/CS/event.cs
  • a fullscreen window, able to change screen definition (CsGL.Util.ScreenForm). Demonstrated in the CsGLExamples.

Help wanted

A new sub-project (module) is checked in CVS: csGLE.
It aims to be a C# implementation of the GLE (http://linas.org/gle/) library.
For now I just exposed all GLE.h function in a CsGL.GLE.GLE class. They do nothing but the project build.
I will contribute, but slowly to this project, but any patch or examples are welcome and will be commited hastily, I could eventually grant CVS access.
By the way my IDE is SharpDevelop (http://www.ICsharpCode.net) and it will compile the project with a single stroke on 'F8'.

Old News & Info

November 21, 2002

NeHe finally got our release news for 1.4.1 and 0.9.1 posted to his site (thanks NeHe). Hopefully with the influx of curious eyes this will bring, we'll gain a few more contributors... Just to be clear, you will need the .NET runtime available from Windows Update or from MSDN to run the examples, to do development you will need the Framework SDK and a few other tools as noted in the FAQ or the included README's. Currently, we're not running on Mono though we're prepared to, help the Mono guys out with their Windows Forms support or hack in support for a GTK# OpenGL control if you're interested in CsGL on non-Microsoft platforms. We could use help with more examples, more projects, and general help improving CsGL, the more the merrier. Download the goodies, hack away on them, join us in the forum, and contribute!

November 15, 2002

Another new forum, update your links and create another account. Sorry for the hassle.

November 02, 2002
  • Version 1.4.1 released!
  • a new forum! again! this one should have a longer life and is quite nice ;-),
    please try the mailing list too...
  • Basically it's a maintenance release with lot of debugging.
  • The OpenGLContext creation has been rewrite / enhanced to be more easily customizable
  • The GL generator.exe generated incorrect code, it has been fixed. (and the OpenGL_Extension file regenerated)
  • A rarely see issue with incorrect calling convention on DllImport attribute fixed
  • OpenGLContext(s) could now share their display list with other context, customize your context to take advantage of this feature and save video memory !
    of course CsGL.OpenGL.ContextLocal class take advantage of this feature.
  • GDITextureFont work now very fine and simply. And you have a basic example <csgl>/examples/CS/gdifont.cs
  • mouse & keyboard event management work now very fine and there is an associated example <csgl>/examples/CS/event.cs
  • maintenance / compatiblity release of CsGLExample & GLViewer
  • I found this new C#-OpenGL related project http://www.headbits.com with some interesting stuff.


Mailing List

Any questions could be posted on the forum or on the csgl-users mailing list. (subscribtion needed)
Any csgl-news would be posted on the forum or on the csgl-news mailing list. (subscribe) (post allowed only to csgl team)

Quoting Miguel de Icaza Of The Mono Project:

"I have been using your work [CsGL] as the show case for ideas of how to innovate outside the .NET framework."

Requirements

  • Running:
    CsGL comes to the end-user as a .zip file of DLL's with an install/uninstall batch file.
    Additionally, you will also need:
    - The runtime-only versions of OpenGL (which is likely already installed on your system).
    - The .NET Framework installed.
  • Compiling:
    - gcc & GNU make (MinGW), and yes it's absolutly mandatory as I use gcc's built-in function in order to call any C-function pointer, which is the way to call OpenGL 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 & extension.