openGL and JOGL

Specifying Vertices

With OpenGL, all geometric objects are ultimately described as an ordered set of vertices. You use the glVertex*() command to specify a vertex.

 void glVertex{234}{sifd}[v](TYPEcoords);

Specifies a vertex for use in describing a geometric object. You can supply up to four coordinates (x, y, z, w) for a particular vertex or as few as two (x, y) by selecting the appropriate version of the command. If you use a version that doesn't explicitly specify z or w, z is understood to be 0 and w is understood to be 1.

Calls to glVertex*() should be executed between a glBegin(): and glEnd() pair:

glVertex2s(2, 3); 
glVertex3d(0.0, 0.0, 3.1415926535898); 
glVertex4f(2.3, 1.0, -2.2, 2.0); 

GLdouble dvect[3] = {5.0, 9.0, 1992.0};
glVertex3dv(dvect);

The first example represents a vertex with three-dimensional coordinates (2, 3, 0). (Remember that if it isn't specified, the z coordinate is understood to be 0.)
The coordinates in the second example are (0.0, 0.0, 3.1415926535898) (double-precision floating-point numbers).
The third example represents the vertex with three-dimensional coordinates (1.15, 0.5, -1.1). (Remember that the x, y, and z coordinates are eventually divided by the w coordinate.)
In the final example, dvect is a pointer to an array of three double-precision floating-point numbers.

On some machines, the vector form of glVertex*() is more efficient, since only a single parameter needs to be passed to the graphics subsystem.