Open GL
Index: Requirements
Problems Companies
Platforms Languages
Software Research
- 3D graphics library from SGI
- Part of the Win32 API. Will be ported to
Direct3D.
- Currently runs on Windows NT, but coming
soon to Windows 95.
- It's interesting to compare OpenGL with RenderMorphics.
- How does Direct3D compare to OpenGL? According
to Microsoft: OpenGL is a very precise 3-D
technology used for high-end CAD/CAM, modeling and animation, simulations,
scientific visualization, and other professional detailed 3-D image rendering.
It is provided with Windows NT, and is available
to developers for use with Windows 95. Putting
it on Windows 95 means that Win32 OpenGL applications
can be run across our entire family of Win32 workstations. OpenGL currently
takes advantage of high end hardware with OpenGL functionality through a
client driver model designed for OpenGL. In addition, a future release of
OpenGL will be able to take advantage of lower-priced 3-D hardware (provided
that it supports the precision conformance requirements of OpenGL) through
the Direct3D API, providing a complementary
hardware solution.
- Christine from Zombie says that OpenGL is a more mathematically precise
library than, say, RenderMorphics, and
all that precision that SGI's expensive hardware is able to support is not
as necessary for games as it is for Hollywood and the military. She says
that OpenGL is less automatic that RenderMorphics, so you have to explicitly
tell OpenGL to perform certain optimizations for special cases, where RenderMorphics
figures out it can apply the optimizations, because it is less immediate
and more object oriented, so it has higher level knowledge about what you're
doing.