Is there a decent OpenGL text drawing library for the iPhone SDK?

Question

I\'m trying to figure out a simple to draw some text in OpenGL. My research has shown its a fairly complex task. It involves creating (or generating at runtime) a font atl

Answer 1

I found a simple solution to this. Here's a quick function I wrote for it. (You will need the Texture2D class.)

- (void) drawText:(NSString*)theString AtX:(float)X Y:(float)Y {
// Use black
glColor4f(0, 0, 0, 1.0);

// Set up texture
Texture2D* statusTexture = [[Texture2D alloc] initWithString:theString dimensions:CGSizeMake(150, 150) alignment:UITextAlignmentLeft fontName:@"Helvetica" fontSize:11];

// Bind texture
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, [statusTexture name]);

// Enable modes needed for drawing
glEnableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY);
glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D);
glEnable(GL_BLEND);

glBlendFunc(GL_ONE, GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA);

// Draw
[statusTexture drawInRect:CGRectMake(X,Y-1,1,1)];   

// Disable modes so they don't interfere with other parts of the program
glDisableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY);
glDisableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
glDisable(GL_TEXTURE_2D);
glDisable(GL_BLEND);    
}

I believe the input coordinates need to be in your world coordinates, but I'm not sure if that's true in general or if it just works that way for me. You might need to play with the offsets to get it right.