docs/intro.html

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   9 <H1>Introduction</H1>
  10
  11 <p>
  12 Mesa is a 3-D graphics library with an API which is very similar to
  13 that of <a href="http://www.opengl.org/" target="_parent">OpenGL</a>.*
  14 To the extent that Mesa utilizes the OpenGL command syntax or state
  15 machine, it is being used with authorization from <a
  16 href="http://www.sgi.com/" target="_parent">Silicon Graphics,
  17 Inc.</a>(SGI). However, the author does not possess an OpenGL license
  18 from SGI, and makes no claim that Mesa is in any way a compatible
  19 replacement for OpenGL or associated with SGI. Those who want a
  20 licensed implementation of OpenGL should contact a licensed
  21 vendor.
  22 </p>
  23
  24 <p>
  25 Please do not refer to the library as <em>MesaGL</em> (for legal
  26 reasons). It's just <em>Mesa</em> or <em>The Mesa 3-D graphics
  27 library</em>. <br>
  28 </p>
  29
  30 <p>
  31 * OpenGL is a trademark of <a href="http://www.sgi.com/"
  32 target="_parent">Silicon Graphics Incorporated</a>.
  33 </p>
  34
  35
  36 <H1>Project History</H1>
  37
  38 <p>
  39 The Mesa project was founded by me, Brian Paul.  Here's a short history
  40 of the project.
  41 </p>
  42
  43 <p>
  44 August, 1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time.  The project
  45 has no name at that point.  I was simply interested in writing a simple
  46 3D graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API.  I was partially
  47 inspired by the <em>VOGL</em> library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL.
  48 I had been programming with IRIS GL since 1991.
  49 </p>
  50
  51 <p>
  52 November 1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my OpenGL-like
  53 graphics library on the internet.  SGI was generally receptive to the
  54 idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal department, I get permission
  55 to release it.
  56 </p>
  57
  58 <p>
  59 February 1995: Mesa 1.0 is released on the internet.  I expected that
  60 a few people would be interested in it, but not thousands.
  61 I was soon receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a
  62 daily basis.  That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa.  The
  63 name Mesa just popped into my head one day.  SGI had asked me not to use
  64 the terms <em>"Open"</em> or <em>"GL"</em> in the project name and I didn't
  65 want to make up a new acronym.  Later, I heard of the Mesa programming
  66 language and the Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep.
  67 </p>
  68
  69 <p>
  70 In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems.
  71 It even took a while for SGI to support it across their product line.
  72 Mesa filled a big hole during that time.
  73 For a lot of people, Mesa was their first introduction to OpenGL.
  74 I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually helped to promote
  75 the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the project.
  76 </p>
  77
  78
  79 <p>
  80 1995-1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and during
  81 my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University
  82 of Wisconsin in Madison.  My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me do this because
  83 Mesa is now being using for the <a href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html" target="_parent">Vis5D</a> project.
  84 </p><p>
  85 October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released.  It implements the OpenGL 1.1 specification.
  86 </p>
  87
  88 <p>
  89 March 1997: Mesa 2.2 is released.  It supports the new 3dfx Voodoo graphics
  90 card via the Glide library.  It's the first really popular hardware OpenGL
  91 implementation for Linux.
  92 </p>
  93
  94 <p>
  95 September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released.  It's the first publicly-available
  96 implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API.
  97 </p>
  98
  99 <p>
 100 March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting.  I contribute to the
 101 development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years.
 102 </p>
 103
 104 <p>
 105 September 1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc.  Mesa is a key
 106 component of 3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for XFree86.
 107 Drivers for 3dfx, 3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon follow.
 108 </p>
 109
 110 <p>
 111 October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released.
 112 It implements the OpenGL 1.3 specification.
 113 </p>
 114
 115
 116 <p>
 117 November 2001: I cofound <a href="http://www.tungstengraphics.com" target="_parent">
 118 Tungsten Graphics, Inc.</a> with Keith Whitwell, Jens Owen, David Dawes and
 119 Frank LaMonica.
 120 I continue to develop Mesa as part of my resposibilities with Tungsten
 121 Graphics and as a spare-time project.
 122 </p>
 123
 124 <p>
 125 November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released.
 126 It implements the OpenGL 1.4 specification.
 127 </p>
 128
 129 <p>
 130 January 2003: Mesa 6.0 is released.  It implements the OpenGL 1.5
 131 specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and
 132 GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions.
 133 </p>
 134
 135
 136 <p>
 137 Ongoing: Mesa is used as the core of many hardware OpenGL drivers for
 138 the XFree86 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.  Note that Mesa's major
 149 version number tracks OpenGL's minor version number (+1).
 150 Work is underway to implement the OpenGL 2.0 specification.
 151 </p>
 152
 153
 154 <H2>Version 6.x features</H2>
 155 <p>
 156 Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following
 157 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 158 </p>
 159 <ul>
 160 <li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query
 161 <li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
 162 <li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
 163 </ul>
 164 <p>
 165 Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5
 166 for the sake of consistency.
 167 The old tokens are still available.
 168 </p>
 169 <pre>
 170 New Token                   Old Token
 171 ------------------------------------------------------------
 172 GL_FOG_COORD_SRC            GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE
 173 GL_FOG_COORD                GL_FOG_COORDINATE
 174 GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD        GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE
 175 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE     GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE
 176 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE   GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE
 177 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER  GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER
 178 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY          GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY
 179 GL_SRC0_RGB                 GL_SOURCE0_RGB
 180 GL_SRC1_RGB                 GL_SOURCE1_RGB
 181 GL_SRC2_RGB                 GL_SOURCE2_RGB
 182 GL_SRC0_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA
 183 GL_SRC1_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA
 184 GL_SRC2_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA
 185 </pre>
 186 <p>
 187 See the
 188 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html" target="_parent">
 189 OpenGL specification</a> for more details.
 190 </p>
 191
 192
 193
 194 <H2>Version 5.x features</H2>
 195 <p>
 196 Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following
 197 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 198 </p>
 199 <ul>
 200 <li>GL_ARB_depth_texture
 201 <li>GL_ARB_shadow
 202 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar
 203 <li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat
 204 <li>GL_ARB_window_pos
 205 <li>GL_EXT_blend_color
 206 <li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate
 207 <li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op
 208 <li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax
 209 <li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract
 210 <li>GL_EXT_fog_coord
 211 <li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
 212 <li>GL_EXT_point_parameters
 213 <li>GL_EXT_secondary_color
 214 <li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
 215 <li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter)
 216 <li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
 217 </ul>
 218
 219
 220 <H2>Version 4.x features</H2>
 221
 222 <p>
 223 Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following
 224 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 225 </p>
 226
 227 <ul>
 228 <li>GL_ARB_multisample
 229 <li>GL_ARB_multitexture
 230 <li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
 231 <li>GL_ARB_texture_compression
 232 <li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
 233 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add
 234 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
 235 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
 236 <li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
 237 </ul>
 238
 239 <H2>Version 3.x features</H2>
 240
 241 <p>
 242 Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following
 243 features:
 244 </p>
 245 <ul>
 246 <li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats
 247 <li>New texture border clamp mode
 248 <li>glDrawRangeElements()
 249 <li>standard 3-D texturing
 250 <li>advanced MIPMAP control
 251 <li>separate specular color interpolation
 252 </ul>
 253
 254
 255 <H2>Version 2.x features</H2>
 256 <p>
 257 Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following
 258 features.
 259 </p>
 260 <ul>
 261 <li>Texture mapping:
 262         <ul>
 263         <li>glAreTexturesResident
 264         <li>glBindTexture
 265         <li>glCopyTexImage1D
 266         <li>glCopyTexImage2D
 267         <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D
 268         <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D
 269         <li>glDeleteTextures
 270         <li>glGenTextures
 271         <li>glIsTexture
 272         <li>glPrioritizeTextures
 273         <li>glTexSubImage1D
 274         <li>glTexSubImage2D
 275         </ul>
 276 <li>Vertex Arrays:
 277         <ul>
 278         <li>glArrayElement
 279         <li>glColorPointer
 280         <li>glDrawElements
 281         <li>glEdgeFlagPointer
 282         <li>glIndexPointer
 283         <li>glInterleavedArrays
 284         <li>glNormalPointer
 285         <li>glTexCoordPointer
 286         <li>glVertexPointer
 287         </ul>
 288 <li>Client state management:
 289         <ul>
 290         <li>glDisableClientState
 291         <li>glEnableClientState
 292         <li>glPopClientAttrib
 293         <li>glPushClientAttrib
 294         </ul>
 295 <li>Misc:
 296         <ul>
 297         <li>glGetPointer
 298         <li>glIndexub
 299         <li>glIndexubv
 300         <li>glPolygonOffset
 301         </ul>
 302 </ul>
 303
 304
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