Introduction

In this chapter, we will introduce OpenGL techniques to visualize another important class of datasets: those involving images or videos. Such datasets are commonly encountered in many fields, including medical imaging applications. To enable the rendering of images, we will discuss fundamental OpenGL concepts for texture mapping and transition to more advanced techniques that require newer versions of OpenGL (OpenGL 3.2 or higher). To simplify our tasks, we will also employ several additional libraries, including OpenGL Extension Wrangler Library (GLEW) for runtime OpenGL extension support, Simple OpenGL Image Loader (SOIL) to load different image formats, OpenGL Mathematics (GLM) for vector and matrix manipulation, as well as OpenCV for image/video processing. To get started, we will first introduce the features of modern OpenGL 3.2 and higher.