J3/97-213 Date: August 11, 1997 To: J3 From: Loren Meissner Subject: Announcement Concerning Fortran 90 Interface for OpenGL [Reprint from Fortran Forum, Volume 16, Number 2, August 1997:] ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** ANNOUNCEMENTS ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** Fortran 90 interface for OpenGL, f90gl, was announced last October by William Mitchell (see also Fortran Forum, April 1997, page 29). The OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB) is now considering adopting the Fortran 90 bindings on which f90gl is based as the official Fortran 90 bindings for OpenGL. Toward this end, they are seeking comments from people with an expertise in Fortran 90. The proposed bindings are defined in the NIST technical report "A Fortran 90 Interface for OpenGL", which can be obtained from the f90gl home page . Supportive comments as will as critical suggestions are sought. The proposed bindings allow the user to write standard conforming portable Fortan programs with the full functionality of OpenGL. The interface is accessed through modules; this provides explicit interfaces to the OpenGL procedures for improved robustness. Kind type parameters are provided for matching Fortran types to C types. This eliminates the need for nonstandard "*byte" declarations. It also provides a mechanism for transparent type conversion on systems in which the Fortran processor does not support all the C types used by OpenGL, for increased portability. Fortran derived types are provided where C structs are used in the interface. This increases the similarity between the Fortran and C interfaces, and provides a mechanism through which the implementor can encapsulate whatever interface data is required. The Fortran functions corresponding to C functions that return a pointer to a character string now return a pointer to an array of characters. This increases the similarity between the Fortran and C interfaces, and adds the capability of arbitrary length character string return values. Extremely long names are truncated to 31 characters to comply with the Fortran 90 standard, and the prefix is changed to f90gl to avoid name space clashes. Please email your comments to William F. Mitchell .