glMultiDrawElements - OpenGL 4 Reference Pages

## Name

glMultiDrawElements — render multiple sets of primitives by specifying indices of array data elements

## C Specification

`void glMultiDrawElements(` | GLenum mode,
| const GLsizei * count,
| GLenum type,
| const GLvoid * const * indices,
| GLsizei drawcount`)`;

## Parameters

`mode`

  Specifies what kind of primitives to render. Symbolic constants `GL_POINTS`, `GL_LINE_STRIP`, `GL_LINE_LOOP`, `GL_LINES`, `GL_LINE_STRIP_ADJACENCY`, `GL_LINES_ADJACENCY`, `GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP`, `GL_TRIANGLE_FAN`, `GL_TRIANGLES`, `GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP_ADJACENCY`, `GL_TRIANGLES_ADJACENCY` and `GL_PATCHES` are accepted.

`count`

  Points to an array of the elements counts.

`type`

  Specifies the type of the values in `indices`. Must be one of `GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE`, `GL_UNSIGNED_SHORT`, or `GL_UNSIGNED_INT`.

`indices`

  Specifies a pointer to the location where the indices are stored.

`drawcount`

  Specifies the size of the `count` and `indices` arrays.

## Description

`glMultiDrawElements` specifies multiple sets of geometric primitives with very few subroutine calls. Instead of calling a GL function to pass each individual vertex, normal, texture coordinate, edge flag, or color, you can prespecify separate arrays of vertices, normals, and so on, and use them to construct a sequence of primitives with a single call to `glMultiDrawElements`.

`glMultiDrawElements` is identical in operation to glDrawElements except that `drawcount` separate lists of elements are specified.

Vertex attributes that are modified by `glMultiDrawElements` have an unspecified value after `glMultiDrawElements` returns. Attributes that aren't modified maintain their previous values.

## Notes

`GL_LINE_STRIP_ADJACENCY`, `GL_LINES_ADJACENCY`, `GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP_ADJACENCY` and `GL_TRIANGLES_ADJACENCY` are available only if the GL version is 3.2 or greater.

## Errors

`GL_INVALID_ENUM` is generated if `mode` is not an accepted value.

`GL_INVALID_VALUE` is generated if `drawcount` is negative.

`GL_INVALID_OPERATION` is generated if a non-zero buffer object name is bound to an enabled array or the element array and the buffer object's data store is currently mapped.

## Version Support

| OpenGL Version
--- | ---
Function / Feature Name | 2.0 | 2.1 | 3.0 | 3.1 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 4.0 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 4.5
`glMultiDrawElements` | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔

## See Also

glDrawArrays, glDrawRangeElements

## Copyright

Copyright © 1991-2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc. Copyright © 2010-2014 Khronos Group. This document is licensed under the SGI Free Software B License. For details, see http://oss.sgi.com/projects/FreeB/.