#What is OpenGL
27-Dec-94 23:16:47
Sb: #2641-#What is OpenGL
Fm: dennis coady 71062,3205
To: Michael S. Flynn 74551,142
Michael,
Without getting into too much detail. OpenGL (Open Graphics Language) is a
standard interface designed by Silicon Graphics. It is a composite of an
abstracted API (Application Programming Interface) set of "routines" that
employ high performance graphics algorithms for (3d and 2d rendering). An
application
can benefit from OpenGL by using the routines that have already been optimize
for graphic renderings. In my opinion, the most powerful feature of OpenGL will
be the ability to farm out the routines to hardware accelerator cards rather
than use the standard OpenGL library.The hardware accelerator's can
perform the renderings at speeds many times greater than the main CPU (which
of course leaves the CPU free to conduct other tasks).
In a nutshell…..
EMK