docs/intro.html

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  10 <h1>Introduction</h1>
  11
  12 <p>
  13 Mesa is an open-source implementation of the
  14 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/" target="_parent">OpenGL</a> specification -
  15 a system for rendering interactive 3D graphics.
  16 </p>
  17
  18 <p>
  19 A variety of device drivers allows Mesa to be used in many different
  20 environments ranging from software emulation to complete hardware acceleration
  21 for modern GPUs.
  22 </p>
  23
  24 <p>
  25 Mesa ties into several other open-source projects: the
  26 <a href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/" target="_parent">Direct Rendering
  27 Infrastructure</a> and <a href="http://x.org" target="_parent">X.org</a> to
  28 provide OpenGL support to users of X on Linux, FreeBSD and other operating
  29 systems.
  30 </p>
  31
  32
  33
  34 <h1>Project History</h1>
  35
  36 <p>
  37 The Mesa project was originally started by Brian Paul.
  38 Here's a short history of the project.
  39 </p>
  40
  41 <p>
  42 August, 1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time.  The project
  43 has no name at that point.  I was simply interested in writing a simple
  44 3D graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API.  I was partially
  45 inspired by the <em>VOGL</em> library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL.
  46 I had been programming with IRIS GL since 1991.
  47 </p>
  48
  49 <p>
  50 November 1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my OpenGL-like
  51 graphics library on the internet.  SGI was generally receptive to the
  52 idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal department, I get permission
  53 to release it.
  54 </p>
  55
  56 <p>
  57 February 1995: Mesa 1.0 is released on the internet.  I expected that
  58 a few people would be interested in it, but not thousands.
  59 I was soon receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a
  60 daily basis.  That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa.  The
  61 name Mesa just popped into my head one day.  SGI had asked me not to use
  62 the terms <em>"Open"</em> or <em>"GL"</em> in the project name and I didn't
  63 want to make up a new acronym.  Later, I heard of the Mesa programming
  64 language and the Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep.
  65 </p>
  66
  67 <p>
  68 In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems.
  69 It even took a while for SGI to support it across their product line.
  70 Mesa filled a big hole during that time.
  71 For a lot of people, Mesa was their first introduction to OpenGL.
  72 I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually helped to promote
  73 the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the project.
  74 </p>
  75
  76
  77 <p>
  78 1995-1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and during
  79 my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University
  80 of Wisconsin in Madison.  My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me do this because
  81 Mesa is now being using for the <a href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html" target="_parent">Vis5D</a> project.
  82 </p><p>
  83 October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released.  It implements the OpenGL 1.1 specification.
  84 </p>
  85
  86 <p>
  87 March 1997: Mesa 2.2 is released.  It supports the new 3dfx Voodoo graphics
  88 card via the Glide library.  It's the first really popular hardware OpenGL
  89 implementation for Linux.
  90 </p>
  91
  92 <p>
  93 September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released.  It's the first publicly-available
  94 implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API.
  95 </p>
  96
  97 <p>
  98 March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting.  I contribute to the
  99 development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years.
 100 </p>
 101
 102 <p>
 103 September 1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc.  Mesa is a key
 104 component of 3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for XFree86.
 105 Drivers for 3dfx, 3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon follow.
 106 </p>
 107
 108 <p>
 109 October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released.
 110 It implements the OpenGL 1.3 specification.
 111 </p>
 112
 113
 114 <p>
 115 November 2001: I cofounded Tungsten Graphics, Inc. with Keith Whitwell,
 116 Jens Owen, David Dawes and Frank LaMonica.
 117 Tungsten Graphics was acquired by VMware in December 2008.
 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 <p>
 137 2008: Keith Whitwell and other Tungsten Graphics employees develop
 138 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium3D"  target="_parent">Gallium</a>
 139 - a new GPU abstraction layer.  The latest Mesa drivers are based on
 140 Gallium and other APIs such as OpenVG are implemented on top of Gallium.
 141 </p>
 142
 143 <p>
 144 February 2012: Mesa 8.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 3.0 specification
 145 and version 1.30 of the OpenGL Shading Language.
 146 </p>
 147
 148 <p>
 149 Ongoing: Mesa is the OpenGL implementation for several types of hardware
 150 made by Intel, AMD and NVIDIA, plus the VMware virtual GPU.
 151 There's also several software-based renderers: swrast (the legacy
 152 Mesa rasterizer), softpipe (a gallium reference driver) and llvmpipe
 153 (LLVM/JIT-based high-speed rasterizer).
 154 Work continues on the drivers and core Mesa to implement newer versions
 155 of the OpenGL specification.
 156 </p>
 157
 158
 159
 160 <h1>Major Versions</h1>
 161
 162 <p>
 163 This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa.
 164 Mesa's major version number has been incremented whenever a new version
 165 of the OpenGL specification is implemented.
 166 </p>
 167
 168
 169 <h2>Version 8.x features</h2>
 170 <p>
 171 Version 8.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.0 API.
 172 The developers at Intel deserve a lot of credit for implementing most
 173 of the OpenGL 3.0 features in core Mesa, the GLSL compiler as well as
 174 the i965 driver.
 175 </p>
 176
 177
 178 <h2>Version 7.x features</h2>
 179 <p>
 180 Version 7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 2.1 API.  The main feature
 181 of OpenGL 2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language.
 182 </p>
 183
 184
 185 <h2>Version 6.x features</h2>
 186 <p>
 187 Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following
 188 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 189 </p>
 190 <ul>
 191 <li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query
 192 <li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
 193 <li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
 194 </ul>
 195 <p>
 196 Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5
 197 for the sake of consistency.
 198 The old tokens are still available.
 199 </p>
 200 <pre>
 201 New Token                   Old Token
 202 ------------------------------------------------------------
 203 GL_FOG_COORD_SRC            GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE
 204 GL_FOG_COORD                GL_FOG_COORDINATE
 205 GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD        GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE
 206 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE     GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE
 207 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE   GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE
 208 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER  GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER
 209 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY          GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY
 210 GL_SRC0_RGB                 GL_SOURCE0_RGB
 211 GL_SRC1_RGB                 GL_SOURCE1_RGB
 212 GL_SRC2_RGB                 GL_SOURCE2_RGB
 213 GL_SRC0_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA
 214 GL_SRC1_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA
 215 GL_SRC2_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA
 216 </pre>
 217 <p>
 218 See the
 219 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html" target="_parent">
 220 OpenGL specification</a> for more details.
 221 </p>
 222
 223
 224
 225 <h2>Version 5.x features</h2>
 226 <p>
 227 Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following
 228 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 229 </p>
 230 <ul>
 231 <li>GL_ARB_depth_texture
 232 <li>GL_ARB_shadow
 233 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar
 234 <li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat
 235 <li>GL_ARB_window_pos
 236 <li>GL_EXT_blend_color
 237 <li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate
 238 <li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op
 239 <li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax
 240 <li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract
 241 <li>GL_EXT_fog_coord
 242 <li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
 243 <li>GL_EXT_point_parameters
 244 <li>GL_EXT_secondary_color
 245 <li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
 246 <li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter)
 247 <li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
 248 </ul>
 249
 250
 251 <h2>Version 4.x features</h2>
 252
 253 <p>
 254 Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following
 255 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 256 </p>
 257
 258 <ul>
 259 <li>GL_ARB_multisample
 260 <li>GL_ARB_multitexture
 261 <li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
 262 <li>GL_ARB_texture_compression
 263 <li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
 264 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add
 265 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
 266 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
 267 <li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
 268 </ul>
 269
 270 <h2>Version 3.x features</h2>
 271
 272 <p>
 273 Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following
 274 features:
 275 </p>
 276 <ul>
 277 <li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats
 278 <li>New texture border clamp mode
 279 <li>glDrawRangeElements()
 280 <li>standard 3-D texturing
 281 <li>advanced MIPMAP control
 282 <li>separate specular color interpolation
 283 </ul>
 284
 285
 286 <h2>Version 2.x features</h2>
 287 <p>
 288 Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following
 289 features.
 290 </p>
 291 <ul>
 292 <li>Texture mapping:
 293         <ul>
 294         <li>glAreTexturesResident
 295         <li>glBindTexture
 296         <li>glCopyTexImage1D
 297         <li>glCopyTexImage2D
 298         <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D
 299         <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D
 300         <li>glDeleteTextures
 301         <li>glGenTextures
 302         <li>glIsTexture
 303         <li>glPrioritizeTextures
 304         <li>glTexSubImage1D
 305         <li>glTexSubImage2D
 306         </ul>
 307 <li>Vertex Arrays:
 308         <ul>
 309         <li>glArrayElement
 310         <li>glColorPointer
 311         <li>glDrawElements
 312         <li>glEdgeFlagPointer
 313         <li>glIndexPointer
 314         <li>glInterleavedArrays
 315         <li>glNormalPointer
 316         <li>glTexCoordPointer
 317         <li>glVertexPointer
 318         </ul>
 319 <li>Client state management:
 320         <ul>
 321         <li>glDisableClientState
 322         <li>glEnableClientState
 323         <li>glPopClientAttrib
 324         <li>glPushClientAttrib
 325         </ul>
 326 <li>Misc:
 327         <ul>
 328         <li>glGetPointer
 329         <li>glIndexub
 330         <li>glIndexubv
 331         <li>glPolygonOffset
 332         </ul>
 333 </ul>
 334
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