Using the Qt Scene Graph from C++ with QSkinny

Modern Qt apps instantiate a QML engine to parse UI files and display their contents. Under the hood, there is a scene graph taking care of handling graphical resources efficiently. The QSkinny framework on the other hand provides a C++ API on top of the Qt scene graph without the need for QML.

The Qt scene graph sits on top of OpenGL and is used by QML UI elements. The QSkinny framework, on the other hand, is using the scene graph directly without the need for a QML engine; it rather offers a higher level C++ API similar to QWidgets. This talk will give an overview over what is going on under the hood of QML apps and will compare it to how QSkinny operates. Reasons for giving QSkinny a try might include more fine-grained handling of resources, more control over memory usage and easier data access from C++. The QSkinny framework is being used in an automotive UI (which unfortunately cannot be shown in public yet).