This class provides functions to manage OpenGL device contexts.

The application can control sharing of OpenGL contexts. When you share OpenGL contexts, any context in that shared group can use GPU resources (such as textures, buffers, etc.) created in any other context in the group. This saves time and memory when rendering into multiple windows, buffers, etc. We recommend using context sharing when scene graphs are shared between multiple viewers. This approach saves memory on the GPU and improves rendering performance. To create a shared gl context, use a OIV.Inventor.Devices.SoGLContext constructor with the bool shared argument, and specify true.

In a typical Open Inventor application, the viewer class automatically creates an OpenGL device context and manages it for rendering and other GPU-related operations. However, this context is only made current when the viewer is actively using it, for example, to render the scene graph.

Do not assume that any OpenGL context is current. If you need a current OpenGL context, for example to create an OIV.Inventor.Devices.SoGpuBufferObject, () and () an OIV.Inventor.Devices.SoGLContext object.

If your application uses an Open Inventor viewer, the viewer's rendering context can be made current using the viewer's bindNormalContext() method and released using the viewer's unbindNormalContext() method. This context can also be queried using the viewer's getNormalSoContext() method.

If you do not have (or do not have access to) a viewer, you can create a context by creating an OIV.Inventor.Devices.SoGLContext object. In almost all cases, calling the constructor with a true value will create a context that is in a share group with the rendering context. In other words, resources such as textures and buffer objects are shared between these contexts and can be used in any of the contexts in the share group. For example:

SoGLContext glContext = new SoGLContext(true);
glContext.Bind();
   SoGpuBufferObject gpuBuffer = new SoGpuBufferObject( SoGpuBufferObject.BufferAccessFrequencies.STATIC, SoGpuBufferObject.BufferAccessNatures.SHARED );
glContext.Unbind();

SoGLContext context = SoGLContext.GetCurrent( true );
if (context != null)
   context.SetNoGLContextDelete(); // Context is managed by someone else
else
   context = new SoGLContext( true );
context.Bind();
   . . .
context.Unbind();

Reference