OpenGL 1.5 announced

[miriam_e]

SGI and OpenGL ARB Announce OpenGL 1.5 Specification
(28th July)

SGI and the OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB) today announced developments to the OpenGL application programming interface (API). The OpenGL 1.5 specification includes the OpenGL Shading Language, official ARB extensions that are expected to form the foundation of the upcoming OpenGL 2.0 version The OpenGL Shading Language is intended to enable graphics cards from multiple vendors on multiple platforms to use the same high-level shading language. SGI stated that OpenGL 1.5 will enable techniques that make rendering faster, and will be supported by graphics card vendors in products being released later this year.

The OpenGL 1.5 specification evolved with input from the OpenGL ARB and interested participants, to reflect trends in the graphics industry. The ARB's process of enhancing OpenGL includes jointly developing specifications of features proposed by ARB members, to be incorporated and officially supported within the API. In OpenGL 1.5, several additional features and functions have been ratified, including the following:

• Vertex Buffer Object: vertex arrays for higher performance rendering
• Shadow Function: additional comparison functions for shadow mapping
• Occlusion Query: asynchronous occlusion test for better culling
• Non power-of-two Textures: for more efficient use of texture memory, including mipmaps
• OpenGL Shading Language v. 1.0: as official extensions more specifically, shader objects, vertex shaders, and fragment shaders, all for use of programmable shader hardware

Introduced 11 years ago by SGI, OpenGL is a cross-platform, open- standard API for advanced 3D graphics. It is used by software developers to create interactive 2D and 3D visual applications for computer systems ranging from consumer PCs to graphics workstations and supercomputers. The OpenGL API supports most operating systems and has over 60 hardware developer licensees. In 1992, SGI formed the ARB that now governs the evolution and ongoing development of OpenGL, a technology originally created by SGI as an open, platform-independent standard for professional- quality 3D graphics.

http://www.sgi.com

Comments

[apocraphilia.livejournal.com]

I've been looking forward to this for a while, I'm specially in the programmable shader stuff. I've been fiddling around with OpenGL for a few years, with This being the main result.

I once had high hopes of making 3D games, the main problem being content generation is much harder than for 2D - that's why, for producing finished indy things, I've reverted to 2D, in Java.

nice...

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Very nice! Well done! You are far in advance of my level of learning. I am just beginning with OpenGL. I have a couple of lovely books I'd hoped to be well into by now (but have hardly had time to even open) :(
    - Linux 3D Graphics Programming
    - Advanced Linux 3D Graphics Programming
They both use the OpenGL libraries for most of their stuff, but later get into some more complex and cooler things like Inverse Kinematics, etc.
I also have the OpenGL manuals (red book and blue book). If you ever want to have a look at any of these you are welcome to visit. (Though I suspect you'd already have the OpenGL manuals.)

I am on a realtime raytracing mailing list that you might be interested in. I'll chase up the details if you are interested.

One of the people on the list is doing something similar, but using realtime raytracing:
http://www.newimage.com/~rhk/rtchess/