Trouble Understanding glOrtho - c

Question

I'm new to openGL and im having trouble understanding the concept of glOrtho. for instance i have:
void display(void)
{
/* clear all pixels */
glClear (GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
/* draw black polygon (rectangle) with corners at * (0.25, 0.25, 0.0) and (0.75, 0.75, 0.0)
*/
glColor3f (0.0, 0.0, 0.0);
glBegin(GL_POLYGON);
glVertex3f (-.25,0,0.0);
glVertex3f (.25, 0, 0.0);
glVertex3f (.25, .25, 0.0);
glVertex3f (-.25, .25, 0.0);
glEnd();
/* don’t wait!
* start processing buffered OpenGL routines */
glFlush (); }
this produces a rectangle and then this "morphs" the rectangle:
void init (void)
/* this function sets the initial state */ {
/* select clearing (background) color to white */
glClearColor (1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0);
/* initialize viewing values */
glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
glLoadIdentity();
glOrtho(0, 1, 1, 0.0, -1.0,1.0);
}
and this pretty much makes it a square and puts in up in the top left corner. I'm not sure how it does that. Are the points transformed in the rectangle?
EDIT:
figured it out. this was very helpful. http://elvenware.sourceforge.net/OpenGLNotes.html#Ortho

Answer 1

glOrtho is used to define an orthographic projection volume:
The signature is glOrtho(GLdouble left, GLdouble right, GLdouble bottom, GLdouble top, GLdouble near, GLdouble far);
left and right specify the x-coordinate clipping planes, bottom and top specify the y-coordinate clipping planes, and near and far specify the distance to the z-coordinate clipping planes. Together these coordinates provide a box shaped viewing volume.
The way you have defined your volume of projection is not centered around the point 3d (0, 0, 0) but (.5, -5, 0) you should have defined your glOrtho this way instead: glOrtho(-.5, .5, -.5, .5, -1.0, 1.0); since you polygon is center around the point 3d (0, 0, 0). (You can also change the coordinates of your polygon to match the center of your projection volume).

Answer 2

Your glOrtho call sets up the viewport such that the top-left is (0,0) and the bottom-right is (1,1), with a valid Z-range of (-1,1).
Now, you drew a square with a top-left of (-0.25,-0.25) to (0.25,0.25).
The glVertex calls do not match the comment just above them. Either change the vertices to the values you stated, or change the glOrtho call:
glOrtho(-0.5, 0.5, 0.5, -0.5, -1.0, 1.0 );