Qt: Sharing GL objects between several QQuickFramebufferObject's - on which thread to create the shared GL objects?
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I have several QQuickFramebufferObjects between which I want to share some GL objects (shaders and VBOs mainly). My initial plan was:
- Create a class
SharedGLDatato hold the shared object - Instantiate this class on the stack in C++'s
main() - Pass a pointer the object to QML via
ctx->assignRootPropertyor something - Pass the object as a property to the QML items of type
SharedGLData - Access the pointer from C++
But that means I'd be creating GL objects on the main thread and later access them on the render thread. I'm pretty sure that's forbidden, for example see here where it says:
QOpenGLContext can be moved to a different thread with moveToThread(). Do not call makeCurrent() from a different thread than the one to which the QOpenGLContext object belongs.
Is it ok to follow my initial plan or is there a way to create shared GL objects on the render thread?
A possible hack would be to put the shared stuff into a singleton that gets initialized on first use, and make my first use be directly from the rendering code. But that's a hack.
Another idea is to call moveToThread on the QQFBO's GL context to move it to the main thread, instantiate
SharedGLData, then move the GL context back to the render thread. But I don't have a pointer to the render thread... - Create a class
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It sounds to me you want to use QOpenGLContext::setShareContext, ... so why the long way around? I'm by no means an GL expert but as far as I understand it, you just create one context in one thread, and then create another one that shares the first's resources in the other thread.
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@kshegunov: Thanks, that sounds reasonable. But that would mean creating a GL context for every QQFBO, which can be slow. I need really fast creation of new QQFBO items.
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According to the documentation FBOs are one of the objects that can be shared, so as I see it you just create whatever is you need in the one thread, in the second you only call
QOpenGLContext::setShareContextbefore you call create. -
@kshegunov: QQFBO != FBO. :)
FBO is an OpenGL object, QQFBO is a Qt Quick visual item (subclass of QQuickItem) that you can subclass to implement a custom QQuickItem by drawing with OpenGL to a FBO that is later itself drawn to the screen by Qt.
In light of that, I don't think your last answer helps me, sorry.
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Fine.
Have you read this one:
https://blog.qt.io/blog/2015/05/11/integrating-custom-opengl-rendering-with-qt-quick-via-qquickframebufferobject/Might be of help here.
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@kshegunov: Thanks, I have, but unfortunately it contains nothing on this matter.
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Well, I have no other ideas, sorry.
