How to add OF to an existing C++ project in Ubuntu

Although OF is mainly oriented to be used as a framework rather than a library, ie: it imposses certain structure to your application... since 0.9.0 there's a new call ofInit() that starts all the subsystems without need for creating an openFrameworks application. that should help towards being able to use OF as a library from a plain C++ application.

Also there's certain calls that depend on an OF main loop and window been created but as long as you avoid those it should be ok, mostly avoid anything in ofGraphics.h and any draw or bind calls on objects. if you need the functionality of any of those but don't want to have an OF mainloop and window you can still create a GL renderer (ofGLRenderer or ofGLProgrammableRenderer) and pass the objects to draw or bind to it. so instead of doing:

ofDrawCircle(...)
texture.bind()
mesh.draw()
texture.unbind()

you would do:

// somewhere in you application init
ofGLProgrammableRenderer gl;
ofInit();
gl.setup();

// in your draw loop
gl.startRender();
gl.drawCircle(...);
gl.bind(texture);
gl.draw(mesh);
gl.unbind(texture);
gl.endRender();

there's an example on how to use an OF renderer that way in our git repository in apps/devApps/explicitRendererExample although there it's still used as an OF app rather than from a plain C++/gl application

the choice between ofGLRenderer and ofGLProgrammableRenderer depends on the version of openGL you are using, if you are using openGL 3 or more then you should be using a programmable renderer