Question

I want to implement my own cursor in an OpenGL / GLUT window. The usual way to do this is to freeze the cursor (so it can’t hit the edges of the screen) and keep track of its position yourself. I can make the onscreen cursor invisible using

glutSetCursor(GLUT_CURSOR_NONE); 

and then inside of my glutPassiveMotionFunc callback move the pointer to the middle of the window using

int centerX = (float)kWindowWidth / 2.0; int centerY = (float)kWindowHeight / 2.0;  int deltaX = (x - centerX); int deltaY = (y - centerY);  mouseX += deltaX / (float)kWindowWidth; mouseY -= deltaY / (float)kWindowHeight;  glutWarpPointer( centerX, centerY ); 

This works in that it keeps the pointer stuck to the middle of the window. The problem is that when I am drawing the ‘OpenGL’ mouse (inside of the glutDisplayFunc() callback) it is extremely jerky.

I have looked online and found that there can be an issue where glutWarpPointer() causes the glutPassiveMotionFunc callback to be called again, resulting in a loop, but this doesn’t seem to happen here.

I’m on Mac OS X and I found a post saying that CGDisplayMoveCursorToPoint was a better fit for this. Calling CGDisplayMoveCursorToPoint works but the movement is still very jerky (and I seem to get a lot of events where x and y are both 0). In any case, I’d like this to work on Linux as well so a Mac only solution is not ideal (but I’m okay having to do different things on the different systems).

I’ve reduced this to a testcase.

#include <stdio.h> #include <OpenGL/OpenGL.h> #include <GLUT/GLUT.h>  int curX = 0; int curY = 0;  void display() {     glClearColor( 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0 );     glClear( GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT );      float vx = (float)curX / 300.0 + 0.5;     float vy = (float)curY / 300.0 + 0.5;      glColor3f( 1.0, 0.0, 0.0 );     glBegin( GL_POINTS );         glVertex3f( vx, vy, 0.0 );     glEnd();      glutSwapBuffers();  }  void passivemotion( int x, int y ) {     int centerX = 150;     int centerY = 150;      int deltaX = x - centerX;     int deltaY = y - centerY;     curX += deltaX;     curY -= deltaY;      glutWarpPointer( centerX, centerY ); }  void timer( int val ) {     glutTimerFunc( 16, &timer,  0);     glutPostRedisplay(); }  int main (int argc, char * argv[]) {     glutInit(&argc, argv);     glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_RGB);     glutInitWindowSize(300,300);     glutCreateWindow('FPS Mouse Sample');     glutDisplayFunc(&display);     glutPassiveMotionFunc(&passivemotion);     glutSetCursor( GLUT_CURSOR_NONE );     glutTimerFunc( 16, &timer, 0 );     glutMainLoop();     return 0; } 

Answer 1

Thanks aib for the tips. You got me looking into the disassembly of glutWarpPointer and it became obvious what was going on. Calling glutWarpPointer CGPostMouseEvent which results in a bunch of nonsense events (and there isn’t any way to skip them since you only get Mouse Events once per frame, the new ‘real’ events will be late). The solution I’ve found is to only warp when the pointer is at the edge of the screen ( the point, after all, is to pretend like the point can never reach the edge of the screen ). In any case, here is the code.

int lastX = 150; int lastY = 150; void passivemotion( int x, int y ) {         int deltaX = x - lastX;     int deltaY = y - lastY;      lastX = x;     lastY = y;      if( deltaX == 0 && deltaY == 0 ) return;      int windowX     = glutGet( GLUT_WINDOW_X );     int windowY     = glutGet( GLUT_WINDOW_Y );     int screenWidth     = glutGet( GLUT_SCREEN_WIDTH );     int screenHeight    = glutGet( GLUT_SCREEN_HEIGHT );      int screenLeft = -windowX;     int screenTop = -windowY;     int screenRight = screenWidth - windowX;     int screenBottom = screenHeight - windowY;      if( x <= screenLeft+10 || (y) <= screenTop+10 || x >= screenRight-10 || y >= screenBottom - 10) {         lastX = 150;         lastY = 150;         glutWarpPointer( lastX, lastY );         //  If on Mac OS X, the following will also work (and CGwarpMouseCursorPosition seems faster than glutWarpPointer).         //  CGPoint centerPos = CGPointMake( windowX + lastX, windowY + lastY );         //  CGWarpMouseCursorPosition( centerPos );         // Have to re-hide if the user touched any UI element with the invisible pointer, like the Dock.         //  CGDisplayHideCursor(kCGDirectMainDisplay);     }      curX += deltaX;     curY -= deltaY; }