New versions of the OpenGL specifications are regularly released by the Khronos Group, each of which extends the API to support various new features.

For the same reason, OpenGL is purely concerned with rendering, providing no APIs related to input, audio, or windowing. The specification says nothing on the subject of obtaining and managing an OpenGL context, leaving this as a detail of the underlying windowing system. In addition to being language-independent, OpenGL is also cross-platform. As such, OpenGL has many language bindings, some of the most noteworthy being the JavaScript binding WebGL (API, based on OpenGL ES 2.0, for 3D rendering from within a web browser) the C bindings WGL, GLX and CGL the C binding provided by iOS and the Java and C bindings provided by Android. Although the function definitions are superficially similar to those of the programming language C, they are language-independent. The API is defined as a set of functions which may be called by the client program, alongside a set of named integer constants (for example, the constant GL_TEXTURE_2D, which corresponds to the decimal number 3553). Although it is possible for the API to be implemented entirely in software, it is designed to be implemented mostly or entirely in hardware. The OpenGL specification describes an abstract API for drawing 2D and 3D graphics. Īn illustration of the graphics pipeline process Since 2006, OpenGL has been managed by the non-profit technology consortium Khronos Group.

(SGI) began developing OpenGL in 1991 and released it on Japplications use it extensively in the fields of computer-aided design (CAD), virtual reality, scientific visualization, information visualization, flight simulation, and video games. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardware-accelerated rendering. OpenGL ( Open Graphics Library ) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. Trademark license for new licensees who want to use the OpenGL trademark and logo and claim conformance.: This is a Free Software License B closely modeled on BSD, X, and Mozilla licenses. Open source license for use of the S.I.

Card that support opengl 4.3