OpenGL is a highly functional 3D API available on many different platforms including
many X Windows systems, and also Micrsoft's Windows NT and Windows 95. It supports
real time 3D rendering of points/lines/polygons including support for lighting,
texture mapping, anti-aliasing, fogging, motion blur, hidden surface removal, transparency,
and double buffering of images. This fully comformant release implements OpenGL
in software, so additional 3D hardware acceleration is not needed. However, because
it is a software implementation, patience might be required for complex rendering
and on slower processors.
This is a product release of OpenGL on OS/2 for X86 processors. If you develop
an application using OpenGL, you can ship the runtime OpenGL binaries with your
application.
Most of the samples are written to a simple toolkit (AUX or GLUT ) which insulates
the user from OS/2 Windowing , user input, and OpenGL PGL calls. AUX and GLUT demos
are best for doing simple 3D programming, allowing the user to concentrate on playing
with 3D functionality. GLUT has more features than AUX, including popup menus.
OpenGL benchmarking numbers have been published in the GPC quarterly for OS/2,
check out: http&colon.//www.specbench.org/gpc/ opc.static/index.html . Get the
latest web explorer if the performance data is not nicely displayed in an organized
(older versions of webex do not support tables).
Also, there is an OpenGL on OS/2 mailing list. You can get info about it as well
as the OpenGL on OS/2 FAQ from: http&colon.//www.utsi.com/ ~kgl/os2-opengl/index.html.
OpenGL on OS/2 is implemented as several DLL's on top of OS/2. It can bypass
Presentation Manager when displaying OpenGL images by using a `direct' OpenGL context.
It can also render OpenGL images into a standard Presentation Manager bitmap by
using an `indirect' OpenGL context. Direct contexts allow faster OpenGL rendering,
while Indirect contexts allow somewhat integrated Gpi and OpenGL rendering. This
implementation of OpenGL works on OS/2 2.1 and OS/2 Warp. Application writers should
be aware that we eventually intend to support only OS/2 Warp.
A portion of the OpenGL API deals with integrating OpenGL into whatever windowing
system it is running on. In Presentation Manager, this portion of the API is called
PGL . It provides the following functionality: