PowerVR: How to get GLES examples to compile (PandaBoard 3D Graphics)

The goal is to compile the examples from the Imaginations Technologies Graphics SDK to run OpenGL ES software on a BeagleBoard/PandaBoard:

BACKGROUND:

The OMAP4430 contains several things. One area of the silicon is the Imaginations Technologies' licenced intellectual property in the Power SGX540. This section of the die supports hardward processing of the OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0 standards.

The exact nature of the hardware which processes the graphics is proprietary and deliberately kept closed. To protect the knowledge of how to implement graphics drivers in silicon it is assumed that it is necessary to restrict access to the low level software which interacts with it.

To this end you are unlikely to ever see the source code for the device drivers which operate the SGX540. What you do get is the binary driver. TI distribute this within the Ubuntu package "ubuntu-omap4-extras-graphics".

Therefore there are several sources of information involved to getting OpenGL ES 2.0 code to compile on the PandaBoard or the BeagleBoard etc.

STEP 1

- Download the PowerVR SDK
Now you will need to install the PowerVR SDK from Imagination Technologies:

http://www.imgtec.com/powervr/insider/sdkdownloads/index.asp

You will probably need to register an account on that website before you can download the SDK.

Have a quick read through the PDF "OpenGL ES 2.x SDK.User Guide.1.32.2.2f.External.pdf" or similar.

We will focus on the "TrainingCourse" directory and the"Builds" directory mostly.

STEP 2

- Modify the make_demo.mak Makefile
Then you need to modify the Makefile found at /Builds/OGLES2/LinuxGeneric/make_demo.mak

I modified it to include to the absolute path to the "make_platofrm.mak" file

#---------------------------------------------------------------------

#Replaced by Dingo_aus include $(SDKDIR)/Builds/OGLES2/$(PLATFORM)/make_platform.mak
include /media/restore/pandaboard/powervr_sdk/SDKPackage_OGLES2/Builds/OGLES2/LinuxARMV7/make_platform.mak

#---------------------------------------------------------------------



You can replace this with whatever path you can give make to see the "make_platform.mak" file.

STEP 3

- Modify the tools Makefile
All bar the first two demos in the "Trainingcourse" folder need to compile the tools as well as their code. Therefore we will n

Modify Tools Makefile @ SDKPackage_OGLES2/Tools/OGLES2/Build/LinuxGeneric



.PHONY: clean

SDKDIR  = ../../../..

#include $(SDKDIR)/Builds/OGLES2/$(PLATFORM)/make_platform.mak
include /media/restore/pandaboard/powervr_sdk/SDKPackage_OGLES2/Builds/OGLES2/LinuxARMV7/make_platform.mak


OUTNAME = libogles2tools.a
INCLUDES += -I$(SDKDIR)/Tools -I$(SDKDIR)/Tools/OGLES2 $(addprefix -I, $(PLAT_INC))

VPATH = $(SDKDIR)/Tools : $(SDKDIR)/Tools/OGLES2

STEP 4

- Modify the "make_platform.mak" Makefile


The beginning of my make_platform.mak file looks like:


ifdef TOOLCHAIN
PLAT_CC  = $(TOOLCHAIN)/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc
PLAT_CPP = $(TOOLCHAIN)/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabi-g++
PLAT_AR  = $(TOOLCHAIN)/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabi-ar
else
PLAT_CC  = arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc
PLAT_CPP = arm-linux-gnueabi-g++
PLAT_AR  = ar
endif

STEP 5

- Create a script to set the environment variables.

I have created a file called "dingo_build.sh" which contains the following text:

# Script to set variables for OMAP4 build by Dingo_aus
export LIBDIR=/usr/lib
export X11ROOT=/usr/include/X11
make PLATFORM=LinuxOMAP4 X11BUILD=1

I save this file in the same directory as the makefile for a particular training course's code.  I then run it with:

sh ./dingo_build.sh

You should now be able to build the demonstrations. If you have any issues, please feel free to post a comment below.