docs/intro.html

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   9 <H1>Introduction</H1>
  10
  11 <p>
  12 Mesa is an open-source implementation of the
  13 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/" target="_parent">OpenGL</a> specification -
  14 a system for rendering interactive 3D graphics.
  15 </p>
  16
  17 <p>
  18 A variety of device drivers allows Mesa to be used in many different
  19 environments ranging from software emulation to complete hardware acceleration
  20 for modern GPUs.
  21 </p>
  22
  23 <p>
  24 Mesa ties into several other open-source projects: the
  25 <a href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/" target="_parent">Direct Rendering
  26 Infrastructure</a> and <a href="http://x.org" target="_parent">X.org</a> to
  27 provide OpenGL support to users of X on Linux, FreeBSD and other operating
  28 systems.
  29 </p>
  30
  31
  32
  33 <H1>Project History</H1>
  34
  35 <p>
  36 The Mesa project was originally started by Brian Paul.
  37 Here's a short history of the project.
  38 </p>
  39
  40 <p>
  41 August, 1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time.  The project
  42 has no name at that point.  I was simply interested in writing a simple
  43 3D graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API.  I was partially
  44 inspired by the <em>VOGL</em> library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL.
  45 I had been programming with IRIS GL since 1991.
  46 </p>
  47
  48 <p>
  49 November 1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my OpenGL-like
  50 graphics library on the internet.  SGI was generally receptive to the
  51 idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal department, I get permission
  52 to release it.
  53 </p>
  54
  55 <p>
  56 February 1995: Mesa 1.0 is released on the internet.  I expected that
  57 a few people would be interested in it, but not thousands.
  58 I was soon receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a
  59 daily basis.  That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa.  The
  60 name Mesa just popped into my head one day.  SGI had asked me not to use
  61 the terms <em>"Open"</em> or <em>"GL"</em> in the project name and I didn't
  62 want to make up a new acronym.  Later, I heard of the Mesa programming
  63 language and the Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep.
  64 </p>
  65
  66 <p>
  67 In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems.
  68 It even took a while for SGI to support it across their product line.
  69 Mesa filled a big hole during that time.
  70 For a lot of people, Mesa was their first introduction to OpenGL.
  71 I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually helped to promote
  72 the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the project.
  73 </p>
  74
  75
  76 <p>
  77 1995-1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and during
  78 my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University
  79 of Wisconsin in Madison.  My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me do this because
  80 Mesa is now being using for the <a href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html" target="_parent">Vis5D</a> project.
  81 </p><p>
  82 October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released.  It implements the OpenGL 1.1 specification.
  83 </p>
  84
  85 <p>
  86 March 1997: Mesa 2.2 is released.  It supports the new 3dfx Voodoo graphics
  87 card via the Glide library.  It's the first really popular hardware OpenGL
  88 implementation for Linux.
  89 </p>
  90
  91 <p>
  92 September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released.  It's the first publicly-available
  93 implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API.
  94 </p>
  95
  96 <p>
  97 March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting.  I contribute to the
  98 development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years.
  99 </p>
 100
 101 <p>
 102 September 1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc.  Mesa is a key
 103 component of 3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for XFree86.
 104 Drivers for 3dfx, 3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon follow.
 105 </p>
 106
 107 <p>
 108 October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released.
 109 It implements the OpenGL 1.3 specification.
 110 </p>
 111
 112
 113 <p>
 114 November 2001: I cofounded Tungsten Graphics, Inc. with Keith Whitwell,
 115 Jens Owen, David Dawes and Frank LaMonica.
 116 Tungsten Graphics was acquired by VMware in December 2008.
 117 </p>
 118
 119 <p>
 120 November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released.
 121 It implements the OpenGL 1.4 specification.
 122 </p>
 123
 124 <p>
 125 January 2003: Mesa 6.0 is released.  It implements the OpenGL 1.5
 126 specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and
 127 GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions.
 128 </p>
 129
 130 <p>
 131 June 2007: Mesa 7.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 2.1 specification
 132 and OpenGL Shading Language.
 133 </p>
 134
 135
 136 <p>
 137 Ongoing: Mesa is used as the core of many hardware OpenGL drivers for
 138 the XFree86 and X.org X servers within the
 139 <A href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/" target="_parent">DRI project</A>.
 140 I continue to enhance Mesa with new extensions and features.
 141 </p>
 142
 143
 144
 145 <H1>Major Versions</H1>
 146
 147 <p>
 148 This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa.
 149 Mesa's major version number has been incremented whenever a new version
 150 of the OpenGL specification is implemented.
 151 </p>
 152
 153
 154 <H2>Version 7.x features</H2>
 155 <p>
 156 Version 7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 2.1 API.  The main feature
 157 of OpenGL 2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language.
 158 </p>
 159
 160
 161 <H2>Version 6.x features</H2>
 162 <p>
 163 Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following
 164 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 165 </p>
 166 <ul>
 167 <li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query
 168 <li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
 169 <li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
 170 </ul>
 171 <p>
 172 Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5
 173 for the sake of consistency.
 174 The old tokens are still available.
 175 </p>
 176 <pre>
 177 New Token                   Old Token
 178 ------------------------------------------------------------
 179 GL_FOG_COORD_SRC            GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE
 180 GL_FOG_COORD                GL_FOG_COORDINATE
 181 GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD        GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE
 182 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE     GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE
 183 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE   GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE
 184 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER  GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER
 185 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY          GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY
 186 GL_SRC0_RGB                 GL_SOURCE0_RGB
 187 GL_SRC1_RGB                 GL_SOURCE1_RGB
 188 GL_SRC2_RGB                 GL_SOURCE2_RGB
 189 GL_SRC0_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA
 190 GL_SRC1_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA
 191 GL_SRC2_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA
 192 </pre>
 193 <p>
 194 See the
 195 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html" target="_parent">
 196 OpenGL specification</a> for more details.
 197 </p>
 198
 199
 200
 201 <H2>Version 5.x features</H2>
 202 <p>
 203 Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following
 204 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 205 </p>
 206 <ul>
 207 <li>GL_ARB_depth_texture
 208 <li>GL_ARB_shadow
 209 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar
 210 <li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat
 211 <li>GL_ARB_window_pos
 212 <li>GL_EXT_blend_color
 213 <li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate
 214 <li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op
 215 <li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax
 216 <li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract
 217 <li>GL_EXT_fog_coord
 218 <li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
 219 <li>GL_EXT_point_parameters
 220 <li>GL_EXT_secondary_color
 221 <li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
 222 <li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter)
 223 <li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
 224 </ul>
 225
 226
 227 <H2>Version 4.x features</H2>
 228
 229 <p>
 230 Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following
 231 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 232 </p>
 233
 234 <ul>
 235 <li>GL_ARB_multisample
 236 <li>GL_ARB_multitexture
 237 <li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
 238 <li>GL_ARB_texture_compression
 239 <li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
 240 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add
 241 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
 242 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
 243 <li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
 244 </ul>
 245
 246 <H2>Version 3.x features</H2>
 247
 248 <p>
 249 Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following
 250 features:
 251 </p>
 252 <ul>
 253 <li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats
 254 <li>New texture border clamp mode
 255 <li>glDrawRangeElements()
 256 <li>standard 3-D texturing
 257 <li>advanced MIPMAP control
 258 <li>separate specular color interpolation
 259 </ul>
 260
 261
 262 <H2>Version 2.x features</H2>
 263 <p>
 264 Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following
 265 features.
 266 </p>
 267 <ul>
 268 <li>Texture mapping:
 269         <ul>
 270         <li>glAreTexturesResident
 271         <li>glBindTexture
 272         <li>glCopyTexImage1D
 273         <li>glCopyTexImage2D
 274         <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D
 275         <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D
 276         <li>glDeleteTextures
 277         <li>glGenTextures
 278         <li>glIsTexture
 279         <li>glPrioritizeTextures
 280         <li>glTexSubImage1D
 281         <li>glTexSubImage2D
 282         </ul>
 283 <li>Vertex Arrays:
 284         <ul>
 285         <li>glArrayElement
 286         <li>glColorPointer
 287         <li>glDrawElements
 288         <li>glEdgeFlagPointer
 289         <li>glIndexPointer
 290         <li>glInterleavedArrays
 291         <li>glNormalPointer
 292         <li>glTexCoordPointer
 293         <li>glVertexPointer
 294         </ul>
 295 <li>Client state management:
 296         <ul>
 297         <li>glDisableClientState
 298         <li>glEnableClientState
 299         <li>glPopClientAttrib
 300         <li>glPushClientAttrib
 301         </ul>
 302 <li>Misc:
 303         <ul>
 304         <li>glGetPointer
 305         <li>glIndexub
 306         <li>glIndexubv
 307         <li>glPolygonOffset
 308         </ul>
 309 </ul>
 310
 311
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