how can i use opengl to draw individual pixels for things like fractals and perlin noise?

make/change the image data , upload it into a texture with glTexSubImage2D(..) and draw that texture on the screen

http://members.xoom.com/myBollux

there is also glDrawPixels, but usually implemented very poorly.
glBegin( GL_POINTS ) might work for you too, but changing the colours will be lots of state changes and points are usually not implemented all that fast either.



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Cheers!
Brett Porter
PortaLib3D : A portable 3D game/demo libary for OpenGL