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QNX Software Development Platform
QNX SDP is a cross-compiling and debugging environment, including an IDE and command-line tools, for building binary images and programs for target boards running the QNX OS 8.0.
Graphics
Screen Graphics Subsystem Developer's Guide
QNX Screen Graphics Subsystem is a graphics framework that provides all the functionality necessary to develop interactive user experiences.
Utilities and binaries
Screen includes some utilities and binaries to help with calibration, debugging, and demonstrating features.
Screen demo applications
vk-gears-offscreen
Render animated gears into offscreen buffers

QNX Momentics IDE User's Guide
This User's Guide describes version 8.0 of the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that's part of the QNX Tool Suite.
QNX Software Development Platform
QNX SDP is a cross-compiling and debugging environment, including an IDE and command-line tools, for building binary images and programs for target boards running the QNX OS 8.0.
- Quickstart Guide
- System Architecture
  The System Architecture guide accompanies the QNX OS and is intended for both application developers and end-users.
- OS Components & Operations
- Graphics
  - Gestures Library Reference
    The Gestures library provides gesture recognizers to detect gestures through touch events that occur when you place one or more fingers on a touch screen.
  - Image Library Reference
  - Input Events Library Reference
    The Input Events library provides the framework necessary for Screen Graphics Subsystem to communicate with your touch driver.
  - OpenWF Configuration Developer's Guide
    If you are integrating a new display, you must configure and provide the parameters of your display based on its specifications via the OpenWF Display Configuration API (Wfdcfg Library).
  - OpenWF Display Server User's Guide
    The OpenWF Display Server (wfd-server) is a resource manager that provides applications the ability to show image buffers directly to the display controller via the OpenWF Display API.
  - Screen DDK Guide
    The Screen DDK (driver development kit) empowers you to support your own hardware (GPUs, display controller, etc), allowing you to write drivers that map their unique hardware capabilities to the standard Screen APIs.
  - Screen Graphics Subsystem Developer's Guide
    QNX Screen Graphics Subsystem is a graphics framework that provides all the functionality necessary to develop interactive user experiences.
    - Application Development
      The Screen Graphics Subsystem is based on a client/server model where an application is a client that's requesting graphics services from the server (Screen). It includes a composited windowing system as one of these services, which means all application rendering is performed on off-screen buffers, which then can be later used to update the display.
    - Buffers
      A buffer is an area of memory that stores pixel data. Multiple buffers can be associated with a window or stream, but only one buffer can be associated with a pixmap.
    - Rendering
      Rendering refers to the generation of an image.
    - Windowing
      Windows are used to display content and to combine content produced by different renderers. Each of the different renderers can be in the same process, or in another process or processes.
    - Resource Sharing
      Resource sharing allows the access of buffers and their content within the same application and process, or between different applications and processes.
    - Displaying the contents of windows
      Displays are used to show the contents of your windows on physical hardware such as a computer monitor or a touchscreen display.
    - Cursor Movement
      There is more than one way to set up cursor movement between multiple displays.
    - Input
      One key aspect of Screen that enables the development of fully interactive user experiences is the functionality to support input events and to deliver input and notifications back to applications.
    - Event Handling
      Screen events, which include both input and general events, are associated with a given context and are generally handled in your main application's loop.
    - Asynchronous Notifications
      Applications can request to be asynchronously notified of specific Screen events by way of a sigevent.
    - Permissions and Privileges
    - Security policies
      This section on Screen security policies is intended for system integrators who are responsible for implementing and enforcing security policies that create and maintain a trusted execution environment.
    - Debugging
      Debugging graphics isn't easy. Figuring out where the problem is can be challenging because of the many aspects and components when it comes to graphics. The goal of this chapter is to show the tools and techniques that you can use to help with your investigation.
    - Wayland on Screen
      Running Wayland on the Screen Graphics Subsystem provides a C library implementation of the core Wayland communication library.
    - Utilities and binaries
      Screen includes some utilities and binaries to help with calibration, debugging, and demonstrating features.
      - Graphics services
      - API information utilities
      - Screen utilities
      - Screen demo applications
        disp-gles2-gears
        Demonstrate virtual display APIs using OpenGL ES 2.x
        events
        Create a window manager connection to Screen and dump the events received as output to the console.
        gles2-gears
        Display hardware-rendered content using OpenGL ES 2.x
        gles2-gears-offscreen
        Render animated gears to offscreen buffers
        gles2-maze
        Demonstrate how to use texture, as well as vertex and fragment shaders
        gles2-teapot
        Demonstrate 3D rendering using OpenGL ES 2.x
        gles3-gears
        Display hardware-rendered content using OpenGL ES 3.x
        sharewin
        Demonstrate content sharing between windows
        sw-vsync
        Display software-rasterized content
        vk-fsray
        Display fragment shader based ray tracer rendered content using Vulkan
        vk-gears
        Display hardware-rendered content using Vulkan
        vk-gears-offscreen
        Render animated gears into offscreen buffers
        vk-maze
        Demonstrate how to use texture, as well as vertex and fragment shaders
        vk-teapot
        Demonstrate 3D rendering using Vulkan
        win-vsync
        Display software-rasterized content using multiple windows in a hierarchy
      - DRM utilities
      - Touch utilities
    - Screen library reference
      Two important aspects to note when using Screen are function safety and function execution types.
    - Configuring Screen
      You configure libraries, drivers, and Screen parameters using the configuration file, graphics.conf.
    - Glossary
  - Video Capture Developer's Guide
    The video capture framework provides applications the ability to capture frames from a video input source. These frames can be passed to a graphics component such as Screen for display.
- Programming
- System Security Guide
  The QNX System Security Guide is intended for both system integrators who are responsible for the security of a QNX OS system and developers who want to create a QNX OS resource manager free from vulnerabilities.
- Utilities & Libraries
- Migrating to QNX OS 8.0
QNX Software in the Cloud
QNX Software in the Cloud enables developers to use the QNX software in Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure (Azure).
QNX Toolkit for Visual Studio Code
This User's Guide describes the QNX^® Toolkit for Visual Studio Code. The guide introduces you to the QNX Toolkit by explaining the QNX development environment and how to build, run, and debug your QNX^® Operating System (OS) applications and systems.
QNX Hypervisor and QNX Hypervisor for Safety
The QNX Hypervisor and QNX Hypervisor for Safety products allow you to run multiple OSs on a target system so you can separate critical and non-critical functions, support a wide variety of applications, and reduce hardware costs.
Typographical Conventions, Support, and Licensing
This section describes the typographical conventions used throughout the documentation, explains how to obtain technical support, and provides some information about licensing.

vk-gears-offscreen

Graphics and Screen4.0 (8.x)Screen Graphics Subsystem Developer's GuideAPIProgrammingUtilities

Render animated gears into offscreen buffers

Syntax:

vk-gears-offscreen [-dumpframe=frame_number]
                   [-fomrat=pixel_format]
                   [-frame-limit=frame_limit]
                   [-gpu=gpu_index]
                   [-linear]
                   [-nbuffers=count]
                   [-size=widthxheight]
                   [-validate]
                   [-screen_buffer]

Runs on:

QNX OS

Vulkan options:

-dumpframe=frame_number

Set the frame_number to be saved in a BMP file where frame_number is greater than zero (0). Once set, a file is created in the current working directory using the following naming convention:

pixel_format-widthxheight-frame_number

This feature supports only 32-bit RGBA formats.

-fomrat= pixel_format

Set the pixel format from the following values:

rgb565
rgba5551
rgba4444
rgba8888 (default format)
bgra8888
rgba1010102
bgra1010102

-frame-limit= frame_render

Limit the number of frames rendered. Default is unlimited (-1.)

-gpu=gpu_index

Use gpu_index to specify the GPU to use. If this option is not set, the default is -1, auto-detect the fasted GPU.

-linear

Use VK_IMAGE_TILING_LINEAR instead of VK_IMAGE_TILING_OPTIMAL to test performance.

-nbuffers=count

Set the number of offscreen buffers to be cycled. The default is 3.

-size=widthxheight

Set the size as specified, using integer values for width and height, of the viewport. The default size is 1920x1080.

-validate

Enable installed validation layers.

Screen options:

-screen_buffer: Use Screen pixmap's buffer for rendering. Requires the VK_QNX_external_memory_screen_buffer extension.

Description:

The vk-gears-offscreen binary is a command-line tool that renders animated gears to offscreen buffers with the option to dump given frames to a BMP file. When -screen_buffer is specified, the offscreen buffers are backed by Screen buffer external memory that is imported to the Vulkan device's memory.

Page updated: June 11, 2026