Transformations and Perspective

OpenGL provides three different matrices: modelview, projection, and texture (used in texture mapping). Actually, these matrices are maintained in three stacks. This allows you to push (save) the existing matrix on the stack, apply some new local transformations, draw some vertices under this transformation, and then pop the stack thus restoring the existing transformation. At any time one of the three matrices is active and is set by glMatrixMode(). Note that the transformation that has been multiplied last is the one that is applied first to the object vertices.

glViewport(GLint x, GLint y, GLsizei width, GLsizei height):

Sets the current viewport, that is, the portion of the window to which everything will be clipped. Typically this is the entire window: glViewport(0, 0, win_width, win_height), and hence this should be called whenever the window is reshaped.

glMatrixMode(GLenum mode):

Set the current matrix mode to one of GL_MODELVIEW, GL_PROJECTION, or GL_TEXTURE. The default is GL_MODELVIEW.

glLoadIdentity(void):

Set the current matrix to the identity.

glPushMatrix(void):

Make a copy of the current matrix and push it onto the stack.

glPopMatrix(void):

Pop the top of the current matrix.

glLoadMatrixf(const GLfloat *M):

Sets the current matrix to M.

glMultMatrixf(const GLfloat *M):

Composes the current matrix with M.

Note: The matrices in the last two calls are stored as 4 x 4 homogeneous matrices in column-major order. Thus, each matrix is an array of 16 elements. The first 4 elements are the image of the x-unit vector, the second 4 are the image of the y-unit vector and so on.

Please report any errors or send comments to Dave Mount

Last updated: Sat, Feb 8, 2003.