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.sf.net/" target="_parent">Direct Rendering Infrastructure</a>
  26 and <a href="http://x.org" target="_parent">X.org</a> to provide OpenGL
  27 support to users of X on Linux, FreeBSD and other operating systems.
  28 </p>
  29
  30
  31
  32 <H1>Project History</H1>
  33
  34 <p>
  35 The Mesa project was originally started by Brian Paul.
  36 Here's a short history of the project.
  37 </p>
  38
  39 <p>
  40 August, 1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time.  The project
  41 has no name at that point.  I was simply interested in writing a simple
  42 3D graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API.  I was partially
  43 inspired by the <em>VOGL</em> library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL.
  44 I had been programming with IRIS GL since 1991.
  45 </p>
  46
  47 <p>
  48 November 1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my OpenGL-like
  49 graphics library on the internet.  SGI was generally receptive to the
  50 idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal department, I get permission
  51 to release it.
  52 </p>
  53
  54 <p>
  55 February 1995: Mesa 1.0 is released on the internet.  I expected that
  56 a few people would be interested in it, but not thousands.
  57 I was soon receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a
  58 daily basis.  That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa.  The
  59 name Mesa just popped into my head one day.  SGI had asked me not to use
  60 the terms <em>"Open"</em> or <em>"GL"</em> in the project name and I didn't
  61 want to make up a new acronym.  Later, I heard of the Mesa programming
  62 language and the Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep.
  63 </p>
  64
  65 <p>
  66 In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems.
  67 It even took a while for SGI to support it across their product line.
  68 Mesa filled a big hole during that time.
  69 For a lot of people, Mesa was their first introduction to OpenGL.
  70 I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually helped to promote
  71 the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the project.
  72 </p>
  73
  74
  75 <p>
  76 1995-1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and during
  77 my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University
  78 of Wisconsin in Madison.  My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me do this because
  79 Mesa is now being using for the <a href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html" target="_parent">Vis5D</a> project.
  80 </p><p>
  81 October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released.  It implements the OpenGL 1.1 specification.
  82 </p>
  83
  84 <p>
  85 March 1997: Mesa 2.2 is released.  It supports the new 3dfx Voodoo graphics
  86 card via the Glide library.  It's the first really popular hardware OpenGL
  87 implementation for Linux.
  88 </p>
  89
  90 <p>
  91 September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released.  It's the first publicly-available
  92 implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API.
  93 </p>
  94
  95 <p>
  96 March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting.  I contribute to the
  97 development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years.
  98 </p>
  99
 100 <p>
 101 September 1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc.  Mesa is a key
 102 component of 3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for XFree86.
 103 Drivers for 3dfx, 3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon follow.
 104 </p>
 105
 106 <p>
 107 October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released.
 108 It implements the OpenGL 1.3 specification.
 109 </p>
 110
 111
 112 <p>
 113 November 2001: I cofound <a href="http://www.tungstengraphics.com" target="_parent">
 114 Tungsten Graphics, Inc.</a> with Keith Whitwell, Jens Owen, David Dawes and
 115 Frank LaMonica.
 116 I continue to develop Mesa as part of my resposibilities with Tungsten
 117 Graphics and as a spare-time project.
 118 </p>
 119
 120 <p>
 121 November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released.
 122 It implements the OpenGL 1.4 specification.
 123 </p>
 124
 125 <p>
 126 January 2003: Mesa 6.0 is released.  It implements the OpenGL 1.5
 127 specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and
 128 GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions.
 129 </p>
 130
 131 <p>
 132 June 2007: Mesa 7.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 2.1 specification
 133 and OpenGL Shading Language.
 134 </p>
 135
 136
 137 <p>
 138 Ongoing: Mesa is used as the core of many hardware OpenGL drivers for
 139 the XFree86 and X.org X servers within the
 140 <A href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/" target="_parent">DRI project</A>.
 141 I continue to enhance Mesa with new extensions and features.
 142 </p>
 143
 144
 145
 146 <H1>Major Versions</H1>
 147
 148 <p>
 149 This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa.
 150 Mesa's major version number has been incremented whenever a new version
 151 of the OpenGL specification is implemented.
 152 </p>
 153
 154
 155 <H2>Version 7.x features</H2>
 156 <p>
 157 Version 7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 2.1 API.  The main feature
 158 of OpenGL 2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language.
 159 </p>
 160
 161
 162 <H2>Version 6.x features</H2>
 163 <p>
 164 Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following
 165 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 166 </p>
 167 <ul>
 168 <li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query
 169 <li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
 170 <li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
 171 </ul>
 172 <p>
 173 Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5
 174 for the sake of consistency.
 175 The old tokens are still available.
 176 </p>
 177 <pre>
 178 New Token                   Old Token
 179 ------------------------------------------------------------
 180 GL_FOG_COORD_SRC            GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE
 181 GL_FOG_COORD                GL_FOG_COORDINATE
 182 GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD        GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE
 183 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE     GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE
 184 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE   GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE
 185 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER  GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER
 186 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY          GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY
 187 GL_SRC0_RGB                 GL_SOURCE0_RGB
 188 GL_SRC1_RGB                 GL_SOURCE1_RGB
 189 GL_SRC2_RGB                 GL_SOURCE2_RGB
 190 GL_SRC0_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA
 191 GL_SRC1_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA
 192 GL_SRC2_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA
 193 </pre>
 194 <p>
 195 See the
 196 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html" target="_parent">
 197 OpenGL specification</a> for more details.
 198 </p>
 199
 200
 201
 202 <H2>Version 5.x features</H2>
 203 <p>
 204 Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following
 205 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 206 </p>
 207 <ul>
 208 <li>GL_ARB_depth_texture
 209 <li>GL_ARB_shadow
 210 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar
 211 <li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat
 212 <li>GL_ARB_window_pos
 213 <li>GL_EXT_blend_color
 214 <li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate
 215 <li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op
 216 <li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax
 217 <li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract
 218 <li>GL_EXT_fog_coord
 219 <li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
 220 <li>GL_EXT_point_parameters
 221 <li>GL_EXT_secondary_color
 222 <li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
 223 <li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter)
 224 <li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
 225 </ul>
 226
 227
 228 <H2>Version 4.x features</H2>
 229
 230 <p>
 231 Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following
 232 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 233 </p>
 234
 235 <ul>
 236 <li>GL_ARB_multisample
 237 <li>GL_ARB_multitexture
 238 <li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
 239 <li>GL_ARB_texture_compression
 240 <li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
 241 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add
 242 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
 243 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
 244 <li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
 245 </ul>
 246
 247 <H2>Version 3.x features</H2>
 248
 249 <p>
 250 Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following
 251 features:
 252 </p>
 253 <ul>
 254 <li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats
 255 <li>New texture border clamp mode
 256 <li>glDrawRangeElements()
 257 <li>standard 3-D texturing
 258 <li>advanced MIPMAP control
 259 <li>separate specular color interpolation
 260 </ul>
 261
 262
 263 <H2>Version 2.x features</H2>
 264 <p>
 265 Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following
 266 features.
 267 </p>
 268 <ul>
 269 <li>Texture mapping:
 270         <ul>
 271         <li>glAreTexturesResident
 272         <li>glBindTexture
 273         <li>glCopyTexImage1D
 274         <li>glCopyTexImage2D
 275         <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D
 276         <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D
 277         <li>glDeleteTextures
 278         <li>glGenTextures
 279         <li>glIsTexture
 280         <li>glPrioritizeTextures
 281         <li>glTexSubImage1D
 282         <li>glTexSubImage2D
 283         </ul>
 284 <li>Vertex Arrays:
 285         <ul>
 286         <li>glArrayElement
 287         <li>glColorPointer
 288         <li>glDrawElements
 289         <li>glEdgeFlagPointer
 290         <li>glIndexPointer
 291         <li>glInterleavedArrays
 292         <li>glNormalPointer
 293         <li>glTexCoordPointer
 294         <li>glVertexPointer
 295         </ul>
 296 <li>Client state management:
 297         <ul>
 298         <li>glDisableClientState
 299         <li>glEnableClientState
 300         <li>glPopClientAttrib
 301         <li>glPushClientAttrib
 302         </ul>
 303 <li>Misc:
 304         <ul>
 305         <li>glGetPointer
 306         <li>glIndexub
 307         <li>glIndexubv
 308         <li>glPolygonOffset
 309         </ul>
 310 </ul>
 311
 312
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