docs/intro.html

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  11   <h1>The Mesa 3D Graphics Library</h1>
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  16
  17 <h1>Introduction</h1>
  18
  19 <p>
  20 Mesa is an open-source implementation of the
  21 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/">OpenGL</a> specification -
  22 a system for rendering interactive 3D graphics.
  23 </p>
  24
  25 <p>
  26 A variety of device drivers allows Mesa to be used in many different
  27 environments ranging from software emulation to complete hardware acceleration
  28 for modern GPUs.
  29 </p>
  30
  31 <p>
  32 Mesa ties into several other open-source projects: the
  33 <a href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/">Direct Rendering
  34 Infrastructure</a> and <a href="http://x.org">X.org</a> to
  35 provide OpenGL support to users of X on Linux, FreeBSD and other operating
  36 systems.
  37 </p>
  38
  39
  40
  41 <h1>Project History</h1>
  42
  43 <p>
  44 The Mesa project was originally started by Brian Paul.
  45 Here's a short history of the project.
  46 </p>
  47
  48 <p>
  49 August, 1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time.  The project
  50 has no name at that point.  I was simply interested in writing a simple
  51 3D graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API.  I was partially
  52 inspired by the <em>VOGL</em> library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL.
  53 I had been programming with IRIS GL since 1991.
  54 </p>
  55
  56 <p>
  57 November 1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my OpenGL-like
  58 graphics library on the internet.  SGI was generally receptive to the
  59 idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal department, I get permission
  60 to release it.
  61 </p>
  62
  63 <p>
  64 February 1995: Mesa 1.0 is released on the internet.  I expected that
  65 a few people would be interested in it, but not thousands.
  66 I was soon receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a
  67 daily basis.  That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa.  The
  68 name Mesa just popped into my head one day.  SGI had asked me not to use
  69 the terms <em>"Open"</em> or <em>"GL"</em> in the project name and I didn't
  70 want to make up a new acronym.  Later, I heard of the Mesa programming
  71 language and the Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep.
  72 </p>
  73
  74 <p>
  75 In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems.
  76 It even took a while for SGI to support it across their product line.
  77 Mesa filled a big hole during that time.
  78 For a lot of people, Mesa was their first introduction to OpenGL.
  79 I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually helped to promote
  80 the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the project.
  81 </p>
  82
  83
  84 <p>
  85 1995-1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and during
  86 my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University
  87 of Wisconsin in Madison.  My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me do this because
  88 Mesa is now being using for the <a href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html">Vis5D</a> project.
  89 </p><p>
  90 October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released.  It implements the OpenGL 1.1 specification.
  91 </p>
  92
  93 <p>
  94 March 1997: Mesa 2.2 is released.  It supports the new 3dfx Voodoo graphics
  95 card via the Glide library.  It's the first really popular hardware OpenGL
  96 implementation for Linux.
  97 </p>
  98
  99 <p>
 100 September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released.  It's the first publicly-available
 101 implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API.
 102 </p>
 103
 104 <p>
 105 March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting.  I contribute to the
 106 development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years.
 107 </p>
 108
 109 <p>
 110 September 1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc.  Mesa is a key
 111 component of 3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for XFree86.
 112 Drivers for 3dfx, 3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon follow.
 113 </p>
 114
 115 <p>
 116 October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released.
 117 It implements the OpenGL 1.3 specification.
 118 </p>
 119
 120
 121 <p>
 122 November 2001: I cofounded Tungsten Graphics, Inc. with Keith Whitwell,
 123 Jens Owen, David Dawes and Frank LaMonica.
 124 Tungsten Graphics was acquired by VMware in December 2008.
 125 </p>
 126
 127 <p>
 128 November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released.
 129 It implements the OpenGL 1.4 specification.
 130 </p>
 131
 132 <p>
 133 January 2003: Mesa 6.0 is released.  It implements the OpenGL 1.5
 134 specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and
 135 GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions.
 136 </p>
 137
 138 <p>
 139 June 2007: Mesa 7.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 2.1 specification
 140 and OpenGL Shading Language.
 141 </p>
 142
 143 <p>
 144 2008: Keith Whitwell and other Tungsten Graphics employees develop
 145 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium3D">Gallium</a>
 146 - a new GPU abstraction layer.  The latest Mesa drivers are based on
 147 Gallium and other APIs such as OpenVG are implemented on top of Gallium.
 148 </p>
 149
 150 <p>
 151 February 2012: Mesa 8.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 3.0 specification
 152 and version 1.30 of the OpenGL Shading Language.
 153 </p>
 154
 155 <p>
 156 Ongoing: Mesa is the OpenGL implementation for several types of hardware
 157 made by Intel, AMD and NVIDIA, plus the VMware virtual GPU.
 158 There's also several software-based renderers: swrast (the legacy
 159 Mesa rasterizer), softpipe (a gallium reference driver) and llvmpipe
 160 (LLVM/JIT-based high-speed rasterizer).
 161 Work continues on the drivers and core Mesa to implement newer versions
 162 of the OpenGL specification.
 163 </p>
 164
 165
 166
 167 <h1>Major Versions</h1>
 168
 169 <p>
 170 This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa.
 171 Mesa's major version number has been incremented whenever a new version
 172 of the OpenGL specification is implemented.
 173 </p>
 174
 175
 176 <h2>Version 9.x features</h2>
 177 <p>
 178 Version 9.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.1 API.
 179 While the driver for Intel Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge is the only
 180 driver to support OpenGL 3.1, many developers across the open-source
 181 community contributed features required for OpenGL 3.1.  The primary
 182 features added since the Mesa 8.0 release are
 183 GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object and GL_ARB_uniform_buffer_object.
 184 </p>
 185
 186
 187 <h2>Version 8.x features</h2>
 188 <p>
 189 Version 8.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 3.0 API.
 190 The developers at Intel deserve a lot of credit for implementing most
 191 of the OpenGL 3.0 features in core Mesa, the GLSL compiler as well as
 192 the i965 driver.
 193 </p>
 194
 195
 196 <h2>Version 7.x features</h2>
 197 <p>
 198 Version 7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 2.1 API.  The main feature
 199 of OpenGL 2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language.
 200 </p>
 201
 202
 203 <h2>Version 6.x features</h2>
 204 <p>
 205 Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following
 206 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 207 </p>
 208 <ul>
 209 <li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query
 210 <li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
 211 <li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
 212 </ul>
 213 <p>
 214 Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5
 215 for the sake of consistency.
 216 The old tokens are still available.
 217 </p>
 218 <pre>
 219 New Token                   Old Token
 220 ------------------------------------------------------------
 221 GL_FOG_COORD_SRC            GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE
 222 GL_FOG_COORD                GL_FOG_COORDINATE
 223 GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD        GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE
 224 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE     GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE
 225 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE   GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE
 226 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER  GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER
 227 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY          GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY
 228 GL_SRC0_RGB                 GL_SOURCE0_RGB
 229 GL_SRC1_RGB                 GL_SOURCE1_RGB
 230 GL_SRC2_RGB                 GL_SOURCE2_RGB
 231 GL_SRC0_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA
 232 GL_SRC1_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA
 233 GL_SRC2_ALPHA               GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA
 234 </pre>
 235 <p>
 236 See the
 237 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html">
 238 OpenGL specification</a> for more details.
 239 </p>
 240
 241
 242
 243 <h2>Version 5.x features</h2>
 244 <p>
 245 Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following
 246 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 247 </p>
 248 <ul>
 249 <li>GL_ARB_depth_texture
 250 <li>GL_ARB_shadow
 251 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar
 252 <li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat
 253 <li>GL_ARB_window_pos
 254 <li>GL_EXT_blend_color
 255 <li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate
 256 <li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op
 257 <li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax
 258 <li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract
 259 <li>GL_EXT_fog_coord
 260 <li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
 261 <li>GL_EXT_point_parameters
 262 <li>GL_EXT_secondary_color
 263 <li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
 264 <li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter)
 265 <li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
 266 </ul>
 267
 268
 269 <h2>Version 4.x features</h2>
 270
 271 <p>
 272 Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following
 273 extensions incorporated as standard features:
 274 </p>
 275
 276 <ul>
 277 <li>GL_ARB_multisample
 278 <li>GL_ARB_multitexture
 279 <li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
 280 <li>GL_ARB_texture_compression
 281 <li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
 282 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add
 283 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
 284 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
 285 <li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
 286 </ul>
 287
 288 <h2>Version 3.x features</h2>
 289
 290 <p>
 291 Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following
 292 features:
 293 </p>
 294 <ul>
 295 <li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats
 296 <li>New texture border clamp mode
 297 <li>glDrawRangeElements()
 298 <li>standard 3-D texturing
 299 <li>advanced MIPMAP control
 300 <li>separate specular color interpolation
 301 </ul>
 302
 303
 304 <h2>Version 2.x features</h2>
 305 <p>
 306 Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following
 307 features.
 308 </p>
 309 <ul>
 310 <li>Texture mapping:
 311         <ul>
 312         <li>glAreTexturesResident
 313         <li>glBindTexture
 314         <li>glCopyTexImage1D
 315         <li>glCopyTexImage2D
 316         <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D
 317         <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D
 318         <li>glDeleteTextures
 319         <li>glGenTextures
 320         <li>glIsTexture
 321         <li>glPrioritizeTextures
 322         <li>glTexSubImage1D
 323         <li>glTexSubImage2D
 324         </ul>
 325 <li>Vertex Arrays:
 326         <ul>
 327         <li>glArrayElement
 328         <li>glColorPointer
 329         <li>glDrawElements
 330         <li>glEdgeFlagPointer
 331         <li>glIndexPointer
 332         <li>glInterleavedArrays
 333         <li>glNormalPointer
 334         <li>glTexCoordPointer
 335         <li>glVertexPointer
 336         </ul>
 337 <li>Client state management:
 338         <ul>
 339         <li>glDisableClientState
 340         <li>glEnableClientState
 341         <li>glPopClientAttrib
 342         <li>glPushClientAttrib
 343         </ul>
 344 <li>Misc:
 345         <ul>
 346         <li>glGetPointer
 347         <li>glIndexub
 348         <li>glIndexubv
 349         <li>glPolygonOffset
 350         </ul>
 351 </ul>
 352
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