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OpenGL in PHP

Posted by michael on Tue Jun 08, 2004 05:20 PM
from the they-said-it-couldn't-be-done dept.
PHP Programming Graphics Software
Neophytus writes "Submitted as an entry into the .geek PHP5 tournament a proof of concept openGL implementation in PHP has been released by Peter 'iridium' Waller. The demonstration (download) shows four items being rendered in realtime by PHP at a not unreasonable 59FPS. The author welcomes feedback with practical uses for this technology." Update: 06/09 01:10 GMT by T : iridiumz0r, author of this entry, adds a link to this informative page responding to a number of comments in the discussion below.
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  • PHP OpenGL on SourceForge (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mdrejhon (203654) * on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:21PM (#9371307) Homepage
    Very impressive -- A while back I heard about PHPOpenGL [sourceforge.net].

    But he didn't even use this at all! Pretty self contained, even to the gzipped uuencoded DLL file embedded in this PHP script whose sole purpose is to create the window that this PHP demo needs for the 3D graphics.

  • Running This (Score:5, Informative)

    by andyrut (300890) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:21PM (#9371310) Homepage Journal
    I'm sure others are thinking, like me, "Huh? PHP in a window, not a server-side script?" It took me a couple of moments to figure out how this works, so I figured this could be of some help to others struggling with it.

    How to get this download to work in Windows:

    1. Unzip the contents of the download to C:\php5
    2. Open the C:\php5 directory in Windows Explorer
    3. Drag and drop the opengl.php file onto the php-win.exe icon

    or

    2. Open a Command Prompt
    3. C:
    4. cd \php5
    5. php-win.exe opengl.php

    It seemed to me that the DLL paths are hard-coded, so that's why it needs to be in that particular directory.

  • my favorite game... (Score:3, Funny)

    by AtariMike (516594) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:22PM (#9371326)
    How soon till we see a port of Unreal?

  • Using the right tool for the job (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cardinal (311) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:23PM (#9371337)
    ...Is truly a lost art.

    Of course, we already knew this. [php.net]
    • When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail!

    • Re:Using the right tool for the job (Score:5, Interesting)

      by killjoe (766577) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:49PM (#9371581)
      I am curious, why don't you consider php to be the right tool? It's a turing complete language, it's object oriented, it supports inheritance (and mixin type multiple inheritance), it has exception handling, assertions, a large library and a large community.

      So why not php? What makes php a poor choice as opposed to say perl, python, ruby, vb.net or any other scripted language?

      • Re:Using the right tool for the job (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Saeed al-Sahaf (665390) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:52PM (#9371611) Homepage
        So why not php?

        Because you don't have to be a "guru" a la Perl to right functional programs with it. Same reason people here hate VB.

        • Re:Using the right tool for the job (Score:5, Insightful)

          by runderwo (609077) <runderwo&mail,win,org> on Tuesday June 08 2004, @08:47PM (#9373138)
          Nice troll. The problem is more like that with PHP you can "right" programs that work with a minimum of effort. That sounds great, but the issue shows up when that code is handed to someone else. Debugging someone else's code in a language that enforces structured programming pragmas as little as possible is a nightmare. I know this because I do it on a regular basis.

          PHP is like MySQL, and it appeals to the same group of people. It works, most of the time. When it's not sure what to do, it does _something_ rather than annoy the programmer, which might even be the wrong thing. When it does something that might be the wrong thing, it does it silently whenever possible so there is no "squeaking" on the outside. The result is that PHP programs work most of the time, like MySQL. That sounds great, but they also have a tendency to fail in unexpected murky ways.

          BTW, there is no need to be a "guru" to write Perl programs. An understanding of the syntax, as well as basic structured programming/OO principles is all that is necessary to create fast, reusable, and reliable Perl code. The problem is that frequently people lack the latter, so they jump on a language like PHP which lets them get away with not having to know such things. Such people view PHP as superior and Perl programmers as pretentious language snobs because they can do in 5 minutes in PHP what would have taken them an hour to learn how to do in Perl. That in no way invalidates the viewpoint of the Perl snob. PHP is a half-ass hack of a language that happens to be preferred by the majority of half-ass hacks of programmers out there.

          Note, this is not a flame at PHP developers. I know some really good ones. I'm flaming people who suggest that PHP is a better language because it doesn't make you learn anything about software design principles. That's precisely the reason I avoid other people's PHP code whenever possible and don't recommend its use in a business environment where software infrastructure quality counts towards the bottom line.

      • Re:Using the right tool for the job (Score:5, Insightful)

        by pizza_milkshake (580452) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @06:32PM (#9371991) Homepage
        It's a turing complete language

        so is Brainfuck [muppetlabs.com], but i wouldn't consider it the right tool at any time.

      • GTK can embed an OpenGL display, so yes, you can use 3D in GTK apps. That wasn't, however, the parent's point. The point was that PHP was designed for server-side scripting and is therefore not the right tool for any GUI job.

  • Practical uses for this technology (Score:5, Funny)

    by vxvxvxvx (745287) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:23PM (#9371340)
    Opengl in php.. well, let's see, you could umm.. sell it to a PHB who doesn't know any better, or make bets with people at the local pub that it can be done and then whip it out to win the bet.

  • vsync (Score:5, Interesting)

    by shamilton (619422) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:26PM (#9371366)
    59 fps? Sounds like vertical sync at 60 hz. Anybody have any real performance figures?

  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:26PM (#9371372)
    This actually isn't an "OpenGL implementation". It just calls OpenGL func in win32 environment.

  • Do not be fooled by this (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:27PM (#9371377)
    cheap implementation. JBoss have a far superior product and this does not even come close to the technical excellence that is JBoss. I do not work for JBoss.

  • Hrm.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:28PM (#9371390)
    Maybe I'll just start using my kitchen sink as a bathtub just because I can.

  • Actually faster FPS (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Wallslide (544078) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:28PM (#9371396)
    I have a 3ghz P4, Radeon 9700 Pro, and 1gb of RAM, and I get about 180FPS constant

  • Rendering 3D graphs of a slashdotting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mhesseltine (541806) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:29PM (#9371400) Homepage Journal

    While my subject is half-joking, it would be cool to be able to have a running traffic chart generated by a PHP script that you could use to monitor a particular server.

    Maybe tie this in with the 3D portscanning/IDS system mentioned a few days ago [slashdot.org] and make it a remote application?

  • Perfect application (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Capt'n Hector (650760) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:32PM (#9371425)
    I've joined a group at LBNL (berkeley lab) that could use this. They have a database of molecular data, and they need a way to visualize it using a web interface.

    • Re:Perfect application (Score:4, Informative)

      by MagPulse (316) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @06:05PM (#9371732)
      You probably want a Java3D applet, which can use OpenGL or Direct3D. You can access your database from it using JDBC or just grab a flat file from a URL, and then visualize it however you want.

  • PHP Simple DirectMedia Layer Extension (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:33PM (#9371440)
    You'd be surpised what get's prototyped in PHP e.g. http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpsdl/ - "PHP SDL module is a wrapper/binding of Simple DirectMedia Layer for PHP. The goal of this project is to allow rapid prototyping of multimedia applications using PHP."

    Usually doesn't get beyond the prototype though.

  • Two words... (Score:4, Funny)

    by tickticker (549972) <tickticker@gmai l . com> on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:38PM (#9371483) Journal
    ...better pr0n

    --
    This sig doesn't do windows

  • This is NOT Server-side (Score:5, Informative)

    by cbrocious (764766) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:39PM (#9371489) Homepage
    Just from reading a few comments, I see people still believe PHP is only server-side. This is all client-side. No server is neccesary. This is just like php-gtk, and the old php_opengl implimentation.
  • Here's a couple of ideas:
    - GPS terrain mapping: stream a live map in real time with low bandwidth
    - Shrek Chat Live!: Have hires avatars render while you speak. Kinda like that Microsoft chat but with good chat buddies.
    - Quantum Encryption: Have a whole 3d movie but just use three texture map hidden in the movie are your keys.

  • And I say, (Score:4, Funny)

    by consumer (9588) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:45PM (#9371547)
    welcome to the party [cpan.org], PHP.

  • uh, you read that wrong (Score:5, Funny)

    by theantix (466036) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @06:02PM (#9371704) Journal
    from the they-said-it-couldn't-be-done dept.

    No, that was the "from the they-said-it-shouldn't-be-done dept." It's down the hall to the right, and be sure to knock loudly before entering.
  • think about it, im surfing the web, and some stupid ad comes up and demands my processor and video card take time away from whatever I purchased them to do... arrgh... unless I want to disable all the latest plugins or something, and that's a hassle to my lazy moonpie pudged ass

  • awesome (Score:4, Informative)

    by vmircea (730382) <vmircea@@@tjhsst...edu> on Tuesday June 08 2004, @06:06PM (#9371747) Homepage
    This is a very cool thing heh.. but it isn't to be unexpected, as phpopengl [sourceforge.net] was already made, but this new one looks great as well. But who knows what other things will come out... Look at all of these things that php can do here [php.net] ,there are a bunch of interesting and very useful mods, and more come out all the time. Also, take a look at that link, it gives you a good idea of what php can do (although there is much more than what is on that page).

  • Interesting... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cr0sh (43134) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @06:33PM (#9372004) Homepage
    Let me first say I know this is client-side and not server-side.

    I have recently been playing around with Python, PyGame and OpenGL (I love the NeHe tutorial conversions done for PyGame) - I have been pretty pleased with the speed (OpenGL does all the heavy lifting - with a proper culling algorithm and scene graph implementation, speed could go up more with more complex scenes), especially on the machine I am using, which is low-end by many people's definition (P-3/450 w/GeForce 2 - definitely not a gaming machine, but works well enough for me).

    Now, I don't know much about OpenGL yet, but is it possible to render to a file instead of the graphics buffer? If it were, then this thing could (in theory) go server-side (provided the server has the proper APIs and DLL, of course) - then render to a file for display by a web server.

    Such a system could be useful for online data visualization services or other similar systems (mapping, network visualization, etc)...

  • Alert and knowledgeable readers will note that this isn't an implementation of OpenGL, but a binding of the OpenGL API into the PHP language.

    A PHP *implementation* of OpenGL would be very impressive, indeed! That would imply that all of the 3D math, texture mapping, shading, rasterization, etc was written in OpenGL. Unfortunately, such an implementation would probably be extremely slow and therefore fairly useless. And it would of course still require an dynamically linked C library for framebuffer access.

    So -- this is a cute trick, to be sure, but nothing to write home about. The author of the software has already said as much in an earlier comment.

  • Avoiding DLL Hell (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tji (74570) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @07:07PM (#9372328)
    I love his method for avoiding DLL problems.. the dll file is incoded in the program's source code, and is written out at run time:

    ---
    if ( is_file( "SimpleWndProc.dll" ) ? filesize( "SimpleWndProc.dll" ) != 2560 : 1 )
    {
    $dll = "eNrtVU9IFGEUf7NpTbZue1hCYqlvQT3JslsG0clt/aho1XHND OnguDutY+uMzh80"
    . "KDrYQTPJS1TUoWMEdSpYrEOEsQl66yD9gT1ILCHhIcqDML35Z la3IgO7mQ9+733v"
    . "fe9733vffN+blu4p2AEAFQjLAsiBQ03wd3qD8B2c9sHT3fOhH JeYD53pk3UyqKkZ"
    . "TRwgKVFRVIP0SkQzFSIrpLmtgwyoaSlcXV1V68YYevv9/ZFnd 8fKcQwxe2tirBHl"
    . "80fXmUzKqT577k+5CBQgwWEluZm11AvgC+3hKr3gcQu0ye+Cu Jo99qxPlyQ7AFfx"
    [snip]
    . "kdWIJ8pHfdFAdH90uzf+D/QDFVAQCA==";

    $dllout = fopen( "SimpleWndProc.dll", "wb" );

    if ( !$dllout )
    die( "Unable to extract SimpleWndProc.dll" );

    fwrite( $dllout, gzuncompress( base64_decode( $dll ) ) );
    fclose( $dllout );
    ---

    ( He said in the comments that it required a DLL file to work for various reasons, and I guess he wanted to have everything contained in one file... But, it's still pretty funny. )

    • Re:Practical use (Score:5, Informative)

      by shamilton (619422) on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:30PM (#9371415)
      You are way off. This is pure novelty and has nothing to do with "server side" or "web pages," don't be fooled by the presence of PHP. Also, "port of OpenGL" doesn't make much sense -- OpenGL cannot be ported, just implemented, which this does not do. It's just an OpenGL client.

    • Just a wrapper (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Theatetus (521747) * on Tuesday June 08 2004, @05:48PM (#9371570) Journal

      Well, it's not a port or an implementation; it's a wrapper to a DLL. That's the fun of dynamically loaded libraries: you can call opengl, gtk, qt, COM, CORBA, $WHATEVER_YOU_WANT from $WHATEVER_LANGUAGE_YOU_WANT as long as you take the time and effort to write a wrapper label, which this guy did, and he wasn't the first [sourceforge.net].

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