C++11 friendly graphics library

Question

After several years of developing in other languages, I'm getting back into C++ because of some of the nice features being introduced with ISO C++11. Are there any libraries (DirectX/OpenGL based) that make use of these new features in their public API (shared ptrs, lambda friendly, etc)?

EDIT: The library can be in beta status too as I don't expect any library to be commercially-ready on a spec that isn't fully released yet.

Answer 1

From the README:

Magnum is 2D/3D graphics engine written in C++11/C++14 and modern OpenGL. Its goal is to simplify low-level graphics development and interaction with OpenGL using recent C++11/C++14 features and to abstract away platform-specific issues.

Answer 2

As far as I know, there's still no complete C++11 compiler. G++ is pretty close but isn't there yet. I'd suggest to wait. It makes sense to study the language (even if it isn't available), but I think it'll take few years for dust to settle down.

As far as I know, there's little place to use any "advanced" language features (that even includes everything that was present in c++03) in any graphic library. Trying to fully utilize hardware resources isn't the place where it makes sense to use "programming kung-fu" - you'll end up being worried about other things, and KISS principle takes priority. Its either that or you end up diving into some kind of very specific mind-destroying trigonometric nightmare, where KISS principle takes priority once again.

As far as I know, changing graphical API because of single language is not worth it, because availability in multiple languages is more important. That's especially true about OpenGL, but even DirectX had some "fan-made" bindings.

At the moment you're free to use whatever features you want while developing custom frameworks that operate on top of existing 3d API. Shared/weak pointers are useful in resource managment. However, there's no reason to utilize C++11 for that, because functionality is available in boost.

--EDIT--

Qt 5 is said to have C++11 support. It is technically a graphical library that uses OpenGL...

Answer 3

Nothing prevents you from using eg. lambdas, auto and initializer lists in any code.

Gtkmm and relatives (you may enjoy Cairo C++ bindings) have clean C++ interfaces, which allow you to use lambdas and autos when you see fit. It is quite useful to be able to use a lambda as a signal handler, and to use auto when initializing a variable from a Gtk smart pointer.

Also, graphical code is often a quite minor part of an application, and for the other parts, you can use proper C++ with its full blown standard library.

Other than that, support for C++11 is not quite there (Visual studio is far behind, g++'s support is not yet complete), and thus libraries designed for C++11 are not yet here.

Nothing prevents you from trying and making your own :)

Answer 4

The closest to what you want is probably SFML which is a quite clean object wrapper around OpenGL that uses modern C++ idioms more or less throughout.

It’s not using C++11, however, and it’s much too large to be just ported over (it includes sound, networking and lots more in addition to graphics).

I think it could serve as a good basis for an incremental API update to C++11 however.