Question

Why some GL Image functions requires using GL Load to initialize OpenGL context ? Is it possible to fully utilize GL Image using GLEW to initialize OpenGL context ?

Answer 1

If you are talking about the Unofficial SDK’s GL Image system, the answer is no. The SDK is intended to be a package deal; if you’re using one part of it, you ought to be using the rest. After all, if you can build and include GL Image, you could also use GL Load, since they’re bundled together.

And GL Load does exactly what GLEW does; it’s better in many ways, as it doesn’t require that “experimental” thing to make it work on core contexts. Through the C interface, you could just swap out all of the #include <GL/glew.h> parts with #include <glload/gl_[Insert Version Here].h>. You wouldn’t need to modify any code other than that (as well as the initialization code of course).

That being said, you ought to be able to use GL Load and GLEW simultaneously, as long as:

1. You initialize both of them. This means calling glewInit and LoadFunctions after creating the OpenGL context. Their variables shouldn’t interact or anything.

2. You never try to include both of their non-system headers in the same file. GL Image’s TextureGenerator.h is actually designed specifically to not require the inclusion of OpenGL headers (that is, it doesn’t directly use GL types like GLint or GLenum).

It’s obviously wasteful, as they do the exact same job. But it ought to work.