I'm developing a client for LBS service and I need to implement some 2D and 3D graphics. As I read, standard package android.graphics is better for 2D grahics and drawing simple objects, and opengl es is better for 3D and it works faster. Unfortunatelly, I did'n find anything alse about their differences. Does anybody konow more about differences between drawing with OpenGL ES and with android.graphics?
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2 Answers
OpenGL will give you full control over the graphics that you are using. You will not have many limitations long term on what you would like to do. You can make a good 3D game on an Android using OpenGL, as you can render large amounts of polys and overlay 2D graphics on top of those. It is a great deal of work, though.
Regular old OpenGL is my favorite, and I'd hate to have to use any of the frameworks mentioned in other answers, but I've been working with 3D graphics for many years. I can see why others would recommend them.
If you haven't done 3D graphics before, you have a steep learning curve in front of you. If you don't take the time to learn the underlying math and rendering concepts, you will struggle with it long term.
I love the reference pages from Khronos
Also, the Android developer site has some nice reference.
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The main difference is that OpenGL is much faster compared to Canvas (The Android 2D graphics drawing surface). Although hardware acceleration is enabled for Canvas since honeycomb, it is a bit tricky to use it effectively.
Canvas does make life easier though. It's easy to use and simple to understand even for someone new to Computer Graphics.
In the end it will depend on what you need to do. If you need the fancy stuff like Geometry, Lighting etc then you should definitely go for OpenGL. Besides, If you need 3D then OpenGL is your only option since Canvas only supports 2D graphics.
Bare bones OpenGL is very tedious to use in my opinion so I would suggest a framework such as the ones mentioned here.
Hope this helps.
