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 <p>
 136 2008: Keith Whitwell and other Tungsten Graphics employees develop
 137 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium3D"  target="_parent">Gallium</a>
 138 - a new GPU abstraction layer.  The latest Mesa drivers are based on
 139 Gallium and other APIs such as OpenVG are implemented on top of Gallium.
 140 </p>
 141
 142 <p>
 143 February 2012: Mesa 8.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 3.0 specification
 144 and version 1.30 of the OpenGL Shading Language.
 145 </p>
 146
 147 <p>
 148 Ongoing: Mesa is the OpenGL implementation for several types of hardware
 149 made by Intel, AMD and NVIDIA, plus the VMware virtual GPU.
 150 There's also several software-based renderers: swrast (the legacy
 151 Mesa rasterizer), softpipe (a gallium reference driver) and llvmpipe
 152 (LLVM/JIT-based high-speed rasterizer).
 153 Work continues on the drivers and core Mesa to implement newer versions
 154 of the OpenGL specification.
 155 </p>
 156
 157
 158
 159 <H1>Major Versions</H1>
 160
 161 <p>
 162 This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa.
 163 Mesa's major version number has been incremented whenever a new version
 164 of the OpenGL specification is implemented.
 165 </p>
 166
 167
 168 <H2>Version 8.x features</H2>
 169 <p>
 170 Version 8.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.0 API.
 171 The developers at Intel deserve a lot of credit for implementing most
 172 of the OpenGL 3.0 features in core Mesa, the GLSL compiler as well as
 173 the i965 driver.
 174 </p>
 175
 176
 177 <H2>Version 7.x features</H2>
 178 <p>
 179 Version 7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 2.1 API.  The main feature
 180 of OpenGL 2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language.
 181 </p>
 182
 183
 184 <H2>Version 6.x features</H2>
 185 <p>
 186 Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following
 187 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 188 </p>
 189 <ul>
 190 <li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query
 191 <li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
 192 <li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
 193 </ul>
 194 <p>
 195 Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5
 196 for the sake of consistency.
 197 The old tokens are still available.
 198 </p>
 199 <pre>
 200 New Token                   Old Token
 201 ------------------------------------------------------------
 202 GL_FOG_COORD_SRC            GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE
 203 GL_FOG_COORD                GL_FOG_COORDINATE
 204 GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD        GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE
 205 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE     GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE
 206 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE   GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE
 207 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER  GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER
 208 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY          GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY
 209 GL_SRC0_RGB                 GL_SOURCE0_RGB
 210 GL_SRC1_RGB                 GL_SOURCE1_RGB
 211 GL_SRC2_RGB                 GL_SOURCE2_RGB
 212 GL_SRC0_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA
 213 GL_SRC1_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA
 214 GL_SRC2_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA
 215 </pre>
 216 <p>
 217 See the
 218 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html" target="_parent">
 219 OpenGL specification</a> for more details.
 220 </p>
 221
 222
 223
 224 <H2>Version 5.x features</H2>
 225 <p>
 226 Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following
 227 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 228 </p>
 229 <ul>
 230 <li>GL_ARB_depth_texture
 231 <li>GL_ARB_shadow
 232 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar
 233 <li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat
 234 <li>GL_ARB_window_pos
 235 <li>GL_EXT_blend_color
 236 <li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate
 237 <li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op
 238 <li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax
 239 <li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract
 240 <li>GL_EXT_fog_coord
 241 <li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
 242 <li>GL_EXT_point_parameters
 243 <li>GL_EXT_secondary_color
 244 <li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
 245 <li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter)
 246 <li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
 247 </ul>
 248
 249
 250 <H2>Version 4.x features</H2>
 251
 252 <p>
 253 Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following
 254 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 255 </p>
 256
 257 <ul>
 258 <li>GL_ARB_multisample
 259 <li>GL_ARB_multitexture
 260 <li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
 261 <li>GL_ARB_texture_compression
 262 <li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
 263 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add
 264 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
 265 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
 266 <li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
 267 </ul>
 268
 269 <H2>Version 3.x features</H2>
 270
 271 <p>
 272 Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following
 273 features:
 274 </p>
 275 <ul>
 276 <li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats
 277 <li>New texture border clamp mode
 278 <li>glDrawRangeElements()
 279 <li>standard 3-D texturing
 280 <li>advanced MIPMAP control
 281 <li>separate specular color interpolation
 282 </ul>
 283
 284
 285 <H2>Version 2.x features</H2>
 286 <p>
 287 Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following
 288 features.
 289 </p>
 290 <ul>
 291 <li>Texture mapping:
 292         <ul>
 293         <li>glAreTexturesResident
 294         <li>glBindTexture
 295         <li>glCopyTexImage1D
 296         <li>glCopyTexImage2D
 297         <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D
 298         <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D
 299         <li>glDeleteTextures
 300         <li>glGenTextures
 301         <li>glIsTexture
 302         <li>glPrioritizeTextures
 303         <li>glTexSubImage1D
 304         <li>glTexSubImage2D
 305         </ul>
 306 <li>Vertex Arrays:
 307         <ul>
 308         <li>glArrayElement
 309         <li>glColorPointer
 310         <li>glDrawElements
 311         <li>glEdgeFlagPointer
 312         <li>glIndexPointer
 313         <li>glInterleavedArrays
 314         <li>glNormalPointer
 315         <li>glTexCoordPointer
 316         <li>glVertexPointer
 317         </ul>
 318 <li>Client state management:
 319         <ul>
 320         <li>glDisableClientState
 321         <li>glEnableClientState
 322         <li>glPopClientAttrib
 323         <li>glPushClientAttrib
 324         </ul>
 325 <li>Misc:
 326         <ul>
 327         <li>glGetPointer
 328         <li>glIndexub
 329         <li>glIndexubv
 330         <li>glPolygonOffset
 331         </ul>
 332 </ul>
 333
 334
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