I am using point sprites to display a few ten thousand points, each with a different size. It works well, looks great and is quite fast. I'm using a VBO with the coordinates and the sizes in it (4 floats per point).
Here is my display code
glEnable(GL_POINT_SPRITE_OES);
glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, pointTexture);
glTexEnvi( GL_POINT_SPRITE_OES, GL_COORD_REPLACE_OES, GL_TRUE );
glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, pointVertices);
glVertexPointer(3, GL_FLOAT, 4*sizeof(float), 0);
glEnableClientState(GL_POINT_SIZE_ARRAY_OES);
glPointSizePointerOES(GL_FLOAT,4*sizeof(float),(GLvoid*) (sizeof(GL_FLOAT)*3));
glDrawArrays(GL_POINTS, 0, pointNum);
glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, 0);
glDisableClientState(GL_POINT_SIZE_ARRAY_OES);
glDisableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
glDisable(GL_TEXTURE_2D);
glDisable(GL_POINT_SPRITE_OES);
Now, I would also like to be able to zoom in, i.e. use glScalef. Is it possible to change the size of the points accordingly without updating the VBO? glPointSize doesn't have any effect, as I'm using GL_POINT_SIZE_ARRAY_OES.