I'm not sure if this should be in the expert board or not, but I was wondering how one would display a 3D image, like a cube for example, without using OpenGl or DirectX. Also, what do programs like Rhino3D and Maya use for displaying graphics (OpenGl, DirectX, other)?
You can use GDI to display 3D images, for moving objects I would use OpenGL or DirectX.
CAD programs mostly use OpenGL, because they have their roots on UNIX, where DirectX is not available.
Thanks for the info.
OpenGL is preffered nowadays since it's cross platform and very easy to use.
Consider using SDL. It took me a week to setup an OGL window back in 2004, it took all of December 2005 to setup a DirectDraw window, and last month it took me an hour to setup SDL last month. SDL is a very simple interface for OGL or DirectDraw.
I don't know what Rhino uses, but whatever it is, it sucks.