I'm trying to render my depth buffer to my color buffer for a compositing effect, (briefly described here, http://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/NV/copy_depth_to_color.txt), however, the edges are jagged. So, I would like to use multisampling too, but when I turn it on, the result is not what I expected. The edges are smooth, but I don't want the extra garbage in the center. I'm using glReadPixels to read my zbuffer, then using glDrawPixels to render it.

 glEnable(GL_MULTISAMPLE_ARB);
 RenderScene();
 glDisable(GL_MULTISAMPLE_ARB);

 glReadPixels( 0,0, w,h, GL_DEPTH_COMPONENT, GL_FLOAT, depth_buffer );

 // in ortho mode
 glDrawPixels( w,h, GL_DEPTH_COMPONENT, GL_FLOAT, depth_buffer );

Is this the proper way to get an (anti-aliased) composite outline of the rendered scene? glDepthFunc() is always set to GL_LEQUAL, and GL_DEPTH_TEST is enabled. Any suggestions?

Quote:Original post by V-man
Looks to me more like some vertices are not identical so some pixels are missed (not rendered to). Example: 1.0000 != 0.999999
Try to use glutSolidSphere or some other persons code.

Thanks, but I'm not sure what you mean by vertices not be identical. Are you saying this method has accuracy problems if I use GL_FLOAT?
I just tried using GL_UNSIGNED_INT and GL_INT to store my zbuffer, but it didn't help. Nothing changed.

Ok, you are talking about my sphere's geometry? There aren't any duplicate vertices, so no open edges.

I draw my own sphere using:

glBegin(GL_POLYGON);   glNormal3f(...);   glVertex3f(...);glEnd();

I don't think the problem is related to geometry or how it is drawn, as I'm just using the sphere as an example. I have already tried it with many different types of geometry,
and all give the same bad result when multi-sampling is turned on.

Quote:
Not sure what you mean. Are you using floats for your vertices or not?

I'm talking about the GL format that is chosen to read/write the depth buffer (GL_FLOAT, GL_UNSIGNED_INT, etc...).
You brought a good point without knowing it, but it didn't help. :)

OpenGL stores its depth buffer in some internal format (I don't know which), and when I specify GL_FLOAT, that
internal format is converted to floating point. But I think GL_FLOAT has the highest accuracy all of formats (1E+37),
so I don't think that is the source of the problem.

[Edited by - rosewell on June 18, 2008 5:34:46 PM]