General Information about getting started
We will be using OpenGL and GLUT to develop graphics applications in this class. You are welcome to use either C or C++ in conjunction with OpenGL and GLUT to write your programming assignments. If you are having trouble getting an initial visual studio project to work, here is the handout given in lab about getting started. A very useful site for information about OpenGL is: http://www.opengl.org/
If you would like to write your programs on your home machine, you will need to download GLUT. You can do so from a variety of places, including: http://www.xmission.com/~nate/glut.html
Or just search for "download glut windows" under google for other options. Likewise a search under google for "install glut windows" under google will give you good reference for installing the library, header and dll files in the correct place.
Anyone who would like to try a different compiler at home (than visual studio) may be interested in this link which lists several free compilers for windows (there are similar resources available for macintosh and linux): http://www.magma.ca/~louievb/gcc/several_free_compiler.html

Here are instructions on how one student got their code to compile at home on their Macintosh using OS X.