Question

I’m just getting started with OpenGL ES 2.0, what I’d like to do is create some simple 2D output. Given a resolution of 480×800, how can I draw a background texture?

[My development environment is Java / Android, so examples directly relating to that would be best, but other languages would be fine.]

Answer 1

Even though you’re on Android, I created an iPhone sample application that does this for frames of video coming in. You can download the code for this sample from here. I have a writeup about this application, which does color-based object tracking using live video, that you can read here.

In this application, I draw two triangles to generate a rectangle, then texture that using the following coordinates:

   static const GLfloat squareVertices[] = {
        -1.0f, -1.0f,
        1.0f, -1.0f,
        -1.0f,  1.0f,
        1.0f,  1.0f,
    };

    static const GLfloat textureVertices[] = {
        1.0f, 1.0f,
        1.0f, 0.0f,
        0.0f,  1.0f,
        0.0f,  0.0f,
    };

To pass through the video frame as a texture, I use a simple program with the following vertex shader:

attribute vec4 position;
attribute vec4 inputTextureCoordinate;

varying vec2 textureCoordinate;

void main()
{
    gl_Position = position;
    textureCoordinate = inputTextureCoordinate.xy;
}

and the following fragment shader:

varying highp vec2 textureCoordinate;

uniform sampler2D videoFrame;

void main()
{
    gl_FragColor = texture2D(videoFrame, textureCoordinate);
}

Drawing is a simple matter of using the right program:

glUseProgram(directDisplayProgram);

setting the texture uniform:

glActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE0);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, videoFrameTexture);

glUniform1i(uniforms[UNIFORM_VIDEOFRAME], 0);   

setting the attributes:

glVertexAttribPointer(ATTRIB_VERTEX, 2, GL_FLOAT, 0, 0, squareVertices);
glEnableVertexAttribArray(ATTRIB_VERTEX);
glVertexAttribPointer(ATTRIB_TEXTUREPOSITON, 2, GL_FLOAT, 0, 0, textureVertices);
glEnableVertexAttribArray(ATTRIB_TEXTUREPOSITON);

and then drawing the triangles:

glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP, 0, 4);