title: OpenGL height-map painting using CUDA VBO
body: <p>I've asked several questions regarding VBO previously here and from the comments i had received i decided that a new approach must be taken.</p>
  
  <p>To put it simply - I'm trying to draw the Mandelbrot set which is defined on a large FLOAT array, around 512X512 Points. the purpose of my program is to let the user control the zooming and world's orientation (it's a 3d model). 
  so far I've painted the entire thing using GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP which turned to be a bad choice because of its slow painting process. also because implementing my painting style (order of calling the glVertex) became impossible for coding for VBOs.</p>
  
  <p>so I've got several questions.</p>
  
  <p>even after this description i'm not sure either the VBO is the best choice because it's up the user to control the calculations.for each calculation that he causes by the program, i have to recompute the mandelbrot set(~60ms),and recopy the points to the buffer : a process which takes some time(?ms).</p>
  
  <p>the program allows the user also to move in the world so no calculations are done here therefore VBO is an excellent choice here.</p>
  
  <p>1.what's the best way to paint height map(when each cell in the array holds only the height)</p>
  
  <p>2.how can i apply it on VBO and transfer it to cuda (cudaRegisterBuffer or something like that)</p>
  
  <p>3.is there a way to distinguish between the mode and decide when VBOs are needed(in a no calculations mode) and when they aren't(calculations mode).</p>