Question

What would be the best algorithm to generate a list of vertices to draw a plane using triangle strips?

I’m looking for a function which receives the plane’s width and height and returns a float array containing correctly indexed vertices.

width represents the number of vertices per row.

height represents the number of vertices per column.

float* getVertices( int width, int height ) {
    ...
}

void render() {
    glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
    glVertexPointer(3, GL_FLOAT, 0, getVertices(width,heigth));
    glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP, 0, width*height);
    glDisableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
}

Answer 1

Thanks you all. I’ve coded this. Is it correct? Or is the generated strip somehow wrong?

int width;
int height;
float* vertices = 0;
int* indices = 0;

int getVerticesCount( int width, int height ) {
    return width * height * 3;
}

int getIndicesCount( int width, int height ) {
    return (width*height) + (width-1)*(height-2);
}

float* getVertices( int width, int height ) {
    if ( vertices ) return vertices;

    vertices = new float[ getVerticesCount( width, height ) ];
    int i = 0;

    for ( int row=0; row<height; row++ ) {
        for ( int col=0; col<width; col++ ) {
            vertices[i++] = (float) col;
            vertices[i++] = 0.0f;
            vertices[i++] = (float) row;
        }
    }

    return vertices;
}

int* getIndices( int width, int height ) {
    if ( indices ) return indices;

    indices = new int[ iSize ];
    int i = 0;

    for ( int row=0; row<height-1; row++ ) {
        if ( (row&1)==0 ) { // even rows
            for ( int col=0; col<width; col++ ) {
                indices[i++] = col + row * width;
                indices[i++] = col + (row+1) * width;
            }
        } else { // odd rows
            for ( int col=width-1; col>0; col-- ) {
                indices[i++] = col + (row+1) * width;
                indices[i++] = col - 1 + + row * width;
            }
        }
    }
    if ( (mHeight&1) && mHeight>2 ) {
        mpIndices[i++] = (mHeight-1) * mWidth;
    }

    return indices;
}

void render() {
    glEnableClientState( GL_VERTEX_ARRAY );
    glVertexPointer( 3, GL_FLOAT, 0, getVertices(width,height) );
    glDrawElements( GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP, getIndicesCount(width,height), GL_UNSIGNED_INT, getIndices(width,height) );
    glDisableClientState( GL_VERTEX_ARRAY );
}

With width=4 and height=4 this is what I got:

And here I’m modifying some vertex height: