OpenGL flickering screen - c++

Question

I've written a simple opengl running in my ubuntu laptop. It is a small solar system including the sun and the earth, the earth rotates around the sun. The problem with my program is the screen keep blinking continuously every time I try to run it.
#include <GL/glut.h>
#define SUN_RADIUS 0.4
#define EARTH_RADIUS 0.06
#define MOON_RADIUS 0.016
GLfloat EARTH_ORBIT_RADIUS = 0.9;
GLfloat year = 0.0;
void init() {
glClearColor(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0);
glClearDepth(10.0);
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
glLoadIdentity();
}
void renderScene() {
gluLookAt(
0.0, 0.0, -4.0,
0.0, 0.0, 0.0,
0.0, 1.0, 0.0
);
glColor3f(1.0, 1.0, 0.7);
glutWireSphere(SUN_RADIUS, 50, 50);
glPushMatrix();
glRotatef(year, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0);
glTranslatef(EARTH_ORBIT_RADIUS, 0.0, 0.0);
glColor3f(0.0, 0.7, 1.0);
glutWireSphere(EARTH_RADIUS, 10, 10);
glPopMatrix();
}
void display() {
glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
renderScene();
glFlush();
glutSwapBuffers();
}
void idle() {
year += 0.2;
display();
}
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
glutInit(&argc, argv);
glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_DOUBLE | GLUT_RGB);
glutInitWindowPosition(100, 100);
glutInitWindowSize(600, 600);
glutCreateWindow("Solar System");
init();
glutDisplayFunc(display);
glutIdleFunc(idle);
glutMainLoop();
}

Answer 1

gluLookAt() multiplies by the current matrix, it does not load a new one. Multiple gluLookAt()s multiplied together aren't very meaningful.
Reload proj/modelview matrices each frame, helps prevent matrix oddities.
Let GLUT do it's job, don't call display() from idle(), use glutPostRedisplay() instead. That way GLUT knows to call display() the next time through the event loop.
All together:
#include <GL/glut.h>
#define SUN_RADIUS 0.4
#define EARTH_RADIUS 0.06
#define MOON_RADIUS 0.016
GLfloat EARTH_ORBIT_RADIUS = 0.9;
GLfloat year = 0.0;
void renderScene()
{
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity();
glOrtho( -1, 1, -1, 1, -100, 100 );
glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW);
glLoadIdentity();
gluLookAt
(
0.0, 0.0, -4.0,
0.0, 0.0, 0.0,
0.0, 1.0, 0.0
);
glColor3f(1.0, 1.0, 0.7);
glutWireSphere(SUN_RADIUS, 50, 50);
glPushMatrix();
glRotatef(year, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0);
glTranslatef(EARTH_ORBIT_RADIUS, 0.0, 0.0);
glColor3f(0.0, 0.7, 1.0);
glutWireSphere(EARTH_RADIUS, 10, 10);
glPopMatrix();
}
void display()
{
glClearColor(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0);
glClearDepth(10.0);
glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);
renderScene();
glutSwapBuffers();
}
void idle()
{
year += 0.2;
glutPostRedisplay();
}
int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
glutInit(&argc, argv);
glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_DOUBLE | GLUT_RGB);
glutInitWindowPosition(100, 100);
glutInitWindowSize(600, 600);
glutCreateWindow("Solar System");
glutDisplayFunc(display);
glutIdleFunc( idle );
glutMainLoop();
}

Answer 2

This may be due to tearing if you aren't doing any kind of v-sync (Which it doesn't look like your code is). Try adding a sleep time to your display method (like sleep(500)). This isn't the correct way to fix this, but this will allow you to verify that it is the issue. If it is, look into adding v-sync to your application.