glcontext 3.0.0

Portable Headless OpenGL Context

glcontext

glcontext is a library providing OpenGL implementation for ModernGL on multiple platforms.

• glcontext on github
• glcontext on pypi
• ModernGL

Backends

A glcontext backend is either an extension or a submodule of the glcontext package. The package itself does not import any of the backends. Importing the base package glcontext must safe and lightweight.

Structure

Every backend of glcontext must provide a factory function:

def create_context(*args, **kwargs) -> GLContext:
    pass

The create_context method can take any number of positional and keyword arguments. The factory function must return an object supporting the following methods:

def load(self, name:str) -> int:
    pass

The load method takes an OpenGL function name as an input and returns a C/C++ function pointer as a python integer. The return value must be 0 for not implemented functions.

def __enter__(self, name:str):
    pass

The enter method calls ___MakeCurrent to make the GLContext the calling thread's current rendering context. ___MakeCurrent stands for wglMakeCurrent, glxMakeCurrent, ...

def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_val, exc_tb):
    pass

The exit method calls ___MakeCurrent to make the GLContext no longer current.

def release(self):
    pass

The release method destroys the OpenGL context.

Development Guide

There are "empty" example backends provided for developers to help adding new backends to the library. There is a pure python example in empty.py and an extension example in empty.cpp. Besides their name match, they do not depend on each other, they are independent submodules of glcontext.

An "portable" backend implementation must load its dependency at runtime. This rule is for simplifying the build of the entire package. If an implementation cannot provide a "portable" backend, it will not be added to this library. Non "portable" backends are welcome as third party libraries.

A backend must be lightweight, its size must fit within reasonable limits.

To add support for new platforms one must edit the setup.py too. Platform specific dependencies are exceptions from the "portability" rule.

Example for platform specific dependencies:

• gdi32.lib on windows
• libdl.a on linux

Please note that libGL.so is loaded dinamically by the backends.

Current backends

Each backend supports a glversion and mode parameters as a minimum. The glversion is the minimum OpenGL version required while mode decides how the context is created.

Modes

• detect: Will detect an existing active OpenGL context.
• standalone: Crates a headless OpenGL context
• share: Creates a new context sharing objects with the currently active context (headless)

wgl

Parameters

• glversion (int): The minimum OpenGL version for the context
• mode (str): Creation mode. detect | standalone | share
• libgl (str): Name of gl library to load (default: opengl32.dll)

x11

If libgl is not passed in the backend will try to locate the GL library using ctypes.utils.find_library.

Parameters

• glversion (int): The minimum OpenGL version for the context
• mode (str): Creation mode. detect | standalone | share
• libgl (str): Name of gl library to load (default: libGL.so)
• libx11 (str): Name of x11 library to load (default: libX11.so)

darwin

Will create the the highest core context available.

Parameters

• mode (str): Creation mode. detect | standalone

egl

Only supports standalone mode.

If libgl and/or libegl is not passed in the backend will try to locate GL and/or EGL library using ctypes.utils.find_library.

Parameters

• glversion (int): The minimum OpenGL version for the context
• mode (str): Creation mode. standalone
• libgl (str): Name of gl library to load (default: libGL.so)
• libegl (str): Name of gl library to load (default: libEGL.so)
• device_index (int) The device index to use (default: 0)

Environment Variables

Environment variables can be set to configure backends. These will get first priority if defined.

# Override OpenGL version code. For example: 410 (for opengl 4.1)
GLCONTEXT_GLVERSION
# Override libgl on linux. For example: libGL.1.so
GLCONTEXT_LINUX_LIBGL
# Override libx11 on linux. For exampleØ libX11.x.so
GLCONTEXT_LINUX_LIBX11
# Override libegl on linux. For exampleØ libEGL.x.so
GLCONTEXT_LINUX_LIBEGL
# Override gl dll on windows. For example: opengl32_custom.dll
GLCONTEXT_WIN_LIBGL
# Override the device index (egl)
GLCONTEXT_DEVICE_INDEX

Running tests

pip install -r tests/requirements.txt
pytest tests

Contributing

Contribution is welcome.

Pull Requests will be merged if they match the Development Guide.

For prototypes, pure python implementations using ctypes are also welcome. We will probably port it to a proper extension in the future.

Please ask questions here.