OpenGL - Stack overflow if I do, Stack underflow if I don't!

Question

I'm in a multimedia class in college, and we're "learning" OpenGL as part of the class. I'm trying to figure out how the OpenGL camera vs. modelview works, and so I found this example. I'm trying to port the example to Python using the OpenGL bindings - it starts up OpenGL much faster, so for testing purposes it's a lot nicer - but I keep running into a stack overflow error with the glPushMatrix in this code:

  def cube(): 
      for x in xrange(10):
          glPushMatrix()
          glTranslated(-positionx[x + 1] * 10, 0, -positionz[x + 1] * 10); #translate the cube
          glutSolidCube(2); #draw the cube
          glPopMatrix();

According to this reference, that happens when the matrix stack is full.

So I thought, "well, if it's full, let me just pop the matrix off the top of the stack, and there will be room". I modified the code to:

  def cube(): 
      glPopMatrix()
      for x in xrange(10):
          glPushMatrix()
          glTranslated(-positionx[x + 1] * 10, 0, -positionz[x + 1] * 10); #translate the cube
          glutSolidCube(2); #draw the cube
          glPopMatrix();

And now I get a buffer underflow error - which apparently happens when the stack has only one matrix.

So am I just waaay off base in my understanding? Or is there some way to increase the matrix stack size?

Also, if anyone has some good (online) references (examples, etc.) for understanding how the camera/model matrices work together, I would sincerely appreciate them!

Thanks!

EDIT:

Here is the pastebin of the full code: http://pastebin.com/QXxNisuA

Answer 1

Edited to add: this isn't important for now as it will still work just fine and makes learning OpenGL easier but do note that the whole matrix stack system is deprecated in OpenGL 3.x and beyond. One possible replacement is GLM.

The code in your pastebin fails to even run for me.

In particular, your list indices in the display function are out of range (your list has 10 elements : python lists start at 0; you index from 0+1 to 10+1).

I think you also had some globals missing in the mouse handling function but that could be from me moving code around in an attempt to at least make it look like python ;)

Anyway, with these fixes, the code shown below DOES work for me, with no signs of GL matrix stack under/overflow !

import sys
from math import sin, cos
from random import randint
from OpenGL.GL import *
from OpenGL.GLU import *
from OpenGL.GLUT import *
#angle of rotation
xpos= ypos= zpos= xrot= yrot= angle= lastx= lasty = 0

#positions of the cubes
positionz = []
positionx = []

def init():
    global positionz, positionx
    glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST) #enable the depth testing
    glEnable(GL_LIGHTING) #enable the lighting
    glEnable(GL_LIGHT0) #enable LIGHT0, our Diffuse Light
    glShadeModel(GL_SMOOTH) #set the shader to smooth shader

    positionx = [randint(0, 10) for x in xrange(10)]
    positionz = [randint(0, 10) for x in xrange(10)]

def camera():
    global xrot, yrot, xpos, ypos, zpos
    glRotatef(xrot,1.0,0.0,0.0)  #rotate our camera on teh x-axis (left and right)
    glRotatef(yrot,0.0,1.0,0.0)  #rotate our camera on the y-axis (up and down)
    glTranslated(-xpos,-ypos,-zpos) #translate the screen to the position of our camera

def display():
    global angle
    glClearColor(0.0,0.0,0.0,1.0) #clear the screen to black
    glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT) #clear the color buffer and the depth buffer
    glLoadIdentity()
    camera()
    for x in xrange(10):
        glPushMatrix()
        glTranslated(-positionx[x] * 10, 0, -positionz[x] * 10) #translate the cube
        glutSolidCube(2) #draw the cube
        glPopMatrix()
    glutSwapBuffers() #swap the buffers
    angle += angle #increase the angle

def reshape(w, h):
    glViewport(0, 0, w, h); #set the viewport to the current window specifications
    glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); #set the matrix to projection

    glLoadIdentity();
    gluPerspective(60, w / h, 1.0, 1000.0)
    #set the perspective (angle of sight, width, height, , depth)
    glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW); #set the matrix back to model

def keyboard (key, x, y):
    global xrot, xpos, ypos, zpos, xrot, yrot, angle, lastx, lasty, positionz, positionx
    if (key=='q'):
        xrot += 1
        if (xrot >360):
            xrot -= 360
    if (key=='z'):
        xrot -= 1;
        if (xrot < -360): xrot += 360
    if (key=='w'):
        yrotrad = (yrot / 180 * 3.141592654)
        xrotrad = (xrot / 180 * 3.141592654)
        xpos += float(sin(yrotrad))
        zpos -= float(cos(yrotrad))
        ypos -= float(sin(xrotrad))
    if (key=='s'):
        yrotrad = (yrot / 180 * 3.141592654)
        xrotrad = (xrot / 180 * 3.141592654)
        xpos -= float(sin(yrotrad))
        zpos += float(cos(yrotrad))
        ypos += float(sin(xrotrad))
    if (key=='d'):
        yrotrad = (yrot / 180 * 3.141592654)
        xpos += float(cos(yrotrad)) * 0.2
        zpos += float(sin(yrotrad)) * 0.2
    if (key=='a'):
        yrotrad = (yrot / 180 * 3.141592654)
        xpos -= float(cos(yrotrad)) * 0.2
        zpos -= float(sin(yrotrad)) * 0.2
    if (key==27):
        sys.exit(0)

def mouseMovement(x, y):
    global lastx, lasty, xrot, yrot
    diffx=x-lastx #check the difference between the current x and the last x position
    diffy=y-lasty #check the difference between the current y and the last y position
    lastx=x #set lastx to the current x position
    lasty=y #set lasty to the current y position
    xrot += float(diffy) #set the xrot to xrot with the addition of the difference in the y position
    yrot += float(diffx) #set the xrot to yrot with the addition of the difference in the x position

glutInit()
glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_DOUBLE | GLUT_DEPTH)
glutInitWindowSize(500, 500)
glutInitWindowPosition (100, 100)
glutCreateWindow("A basic OpenGL Window")
init()
glutDisplayFunc(display)
glutIdleFunc(display)
glutReshapeFunc(reshape)
glutPassiveMotionFunc(mouseMovement)
#check for mouse movement
glutKeyboardFunc (keyboard)
glutMainLoop()

Answer 2

OpenGL can store and restore matrices on a stack using glPushMatrix and glPopMatrix. It is very important that each push has a corresponding pop - if you push more than you pop, you get told when all the drawing is over that you are overflowing the stack. If you pop more than you push, you get told immediately that you are underflowing the stack. This is how OpenGL lets you localise programming errors.

So ensure that all pushes everywhere have a corresponding pop.

Everywhere you push, ensure there is a corresponding pop in the exit of that code block.

If your code is throwing an exception (i.e. your iterating out of bounds in your array?), it may be that you need to place the pop in a finally block, e.g.:

def cube():
    for x in xrange(10):
        try:
            glPushMatrix()
            # draw something
        finally:
            glPopMatrix()
            # I'm trusting some code further out will catch and display your actual error now