docs/intro.html

   1 <HTML>
   2
   3 <TITLE>Mesa Introduction</TITLE>
   4
   5 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mesa.css"></head>
   6
   7 <BODY>
   8
   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
 132 <p>
 133 Ongoing: Mesa is used as the core of many hardware OpenGL drivers for
 134 the XFree86 X.org X servers within the
 135 <A href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/" target="_parent">DRI project</A>.
 136 I continue to enhance Mesa with new extensions and features.
 137 </p>
 138
 139
 140
 141 <H1>Major Versions</H1>
 142
 143 <p>
 144 This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa.  Note that Mesa's major
 145 version number tracks OpenGL's minor version number (+1).
 146 Work is underway to implement the OpenGL 2.0 specification.
 147 </p>
 148
 149
 150 <H2>Version 6.x features</H2>
 151 <p>
 152 Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following
 153 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 154 </p>
 155 <ul>
 156 <li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query
 157 <li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
 158 <li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
 159 </ul>
 160 <p>
 161 Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5
 162 for the sake of consistency.
 163 The old tokens are still available.
 164 </p>
 165 <pre>
 166 New Token                   Old Token
 167 ------------------------------------------------------------
 168 GL_FOG_COORD_SRC            GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE
 169 GL_FOG_COORD                GL_FOG_COORDINATE
 170 GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD        GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE
 171 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE     GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE
 172 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE   GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE
 173 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER  GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER
 174 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY          GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY
 175 GL_SRC0_RGB                 GL_SOURCE0_RGB
 176 GL_SRC1_RGB                 GL_SOURCE1_RGB
 177 GL_SRC2_RGB                 GL_SOURCE2_RGB
 178 GL_SRC0_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA
 179 GL_SRC1_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA
 180 GL_SRC2_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA
 181 </pre>
 182 <p>
 183 See the
 184 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html" target="_parent">
 185 OpenGL specification</a> for more details.
 186 </p>
 187
 188
 189
 190 <H2>Version 5.x features</H2>
 191 <p>
 192 Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following
 193 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 194 </p>
 195 <ul>
 196 <li>GL_ARB_depth_texture
 197 <li>GL_ARB_shadow
 198 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar
 199 <li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat
 200 <li>GL_ARB_window_pos
 201 <li>GL_EXT_blend_color
 202 <li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate
 203 <li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op
 204 <li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax
 205 <li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract
 206 <li>GL_EXT_fog_coord
 207 <li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
 208 <li>GL_EXT_point_parameters
 209 <li>GL_EXT_secondary_color
 210 <li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
 211 <li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter)
 212 <li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
 213 </ul>
 214
 215
 216 <H2>Version 4.x features</H2>
 217
 218 <p>
 219 Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following
 220 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 221 </p>
 222
 223 <ul>
 224 <li>GL_ARB_multisample
 225 <li>GL_ARB_multitexture
 226 <li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
 227 <li>GL_ARB_texture_compression
 228 <li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
 229 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add
 230 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
 231 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
 232 <li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
 233 </ul>
 234
 235 <H2>Version 3.x features</H2>
 236
 237 <p>
 238 Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following
 239 features:
 240 </p>
 241 <ul>
 242 <li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats
 243 <li>New texture border clamp mode
 244 <li>glDrawRangeElements()
 245 <li>standard 3-D texturing
 246 <li>advanced MIPMAP control
 247 <li>separate specular color interpolation
 248 </ul>
 249
 250
 251 <H2>Version 2.x features</H2>
 252 <p>
 253 Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following
 254 features.
 255 </p>
 256 <ul>
 257 <li>Texture mapping:
 258         <ul>
 259         <li>glAreTexturesResident
 260         <li>glBindTexture
 261         <li>glCopyTexImage1D
 262         <li>glCopyTexImage2D
 263         <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D
 264         <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D
 265         <li>glDeleteTextures
 266         <li>glGenTextures
 267         <li>glIsTexture
 268         <li>glPrioritizeTextures
 269         <li>glTexSubImage1D
 270         <li>glTexSubImage2D
 271         </ul>
 272 <li>Vertex Arrays:
 273         <ul>
 274         <li>glArrayElement
 275         <li>glColorPointer
 276         <li>glDrawElements
 277         <li>glEdgeFlagPointer
 278         <li>glIndexPointer
 279         <li>glInterleavedArrays
 280         <li>glNormalPointer
 281         <li>glTexCoordPointer
 282         <li>glVertexPointer
 283         </ul>
 284 <li>Client state management:
 285         <ul>
 286         <li>glDisableClientState
 287         <li>glEnableClientState
 288         <li>glPopClientAttrib
 289         <li>glPushClientAttrib
 290         </ul>
 291 <li>Misc:
 292         <ul>
 293         <li>glGetPointer
 294         <li>glIndexub
 295         <li>glIndexubv
 296         <li>glPolygonOffset
 297         </ul>
 298 </ul>
 299
 300
 301 </body>
 302 </html>