Brief Description
OpenGL
is the premier environment for developing portable, interactive 2D and
3D graphics applications. It makes
available to the programmer a small set of geometric primitives - points,
lines, polygons, images, and bitmaps. OpenGL is well structured with an
intuitive design and logical commands. Efficient OpenGL routines
typically result in applications with fewer lines of code than those
that make up programs generated using other graphics libraries or
packages. In addition, OpenGL drivers encapsulate information about the
underlying hardware, freeing the application developer from having to
design for specific hardware features.
The OpenGL API was designed for use with the C and C++
programming languages but there are also bindings for a number of other
programming languages such as Java, Tcl, Ada, and FORTRAN.
Download
If you are running Windows NT, Windows 2000 or
Windows XP, OpenGL is already available within those Operating Systems'
standard distribution. If you are running on Windows 95, Windows 98 or
Windows ME, OpenGL can be downloaded from a Microsoft web site free of
charge. If you're running on Unix or LInux, you
can either purchase OpenGL or run the MESA free version of OpenGL. One can
visit OpenGL to get more
information.