OpenGL\Graphics\Plotting

We are trying to determine if OpenGL would be a better solution for our project than using standard windows controls from the developers tools we have. We currently have a form setup using 2 image boxes, one represents a top view and the other a side view of an airport runway. We plot the course of the aircraft landing and taking off, each map has three scales 1nm, 10nm & 20nm. We are needing to know if this is poosible in OpenGL
Does OpenGL require less resources than standard windows graphics procedures, we are trying to minimize the CPU usage as much as possible
We are trying to be more precise in our plotting(currently we calculate our positions based on lat,lon, and Latitude but end up rounding them to plot the point) would like to be able to plot the actual float value from the calculation. Currently this is all 2D, once we get through this we would like to do a 3D map with one one runway and give the user the ability to rotate the map for different views if possible.


Thanks

ACP

[EricK]

Originally posted by ACP:
We are trying to determine if OpenGL would be a better solution for our project than using standard windows controls from the developers tools we have. We currently have a form setup using 2 image boxes, one represents a top view and the other a side view of an airport runway. We plot the course of the aircraft landing and taking off, each map has three scales 1nm, 10nm & 20nm. We are needing to know if this is poosible in OpenGL
Does OpenGL require less resources than standard windows graphics procedures, we are trying to minimize the CPU usage as much as possible
We are trying to be more precise in our plotting(currently we calculate our positions based on lat,lon, and Latitude but end up rounding them to plot the point) would like to be able to plot the actual float value from the calculation. Currently this is all 2D, once we get through this we would like to do a 3D map with one one runway and give the user the ability to rotate the map for different views if possible.


Thanks

ACP

I am not sure what you mean by standard windows graphics procedures but, assuming your application is running on a system with a graphics card that supports OGL, then yes OGL should reduce the load on the cpu. OGL is an interface (api) to the graphics card. Computations that the cpu would otherwise be required to do are done (more efficiently) in hardware when using OGL.

On the other hand cpu's are pretty fast at integer math. You could create a crude model, on the level of the game Pong, and I don't think OGL would help you much!