Khronos Unleashes Cutting-Edge, Cross-Platform Graphics Acceleration with OpenGL 4.0
Categories: Developers |
Mar 11, 2010
The Khronos Group announced the release of the OpenGL® 4.0 specification. This is a significant update to the most widely adopted 2D and 3D graphics API, and includes the GLSL 4.00 update to the OpenGL Shading language allowing developers to access the latest generation of GPU acceleration. OpenGL 4.0 further improves the close interoperability with OpenCL™ for accelerating computationally intensive visual applications. Among the new features: two new shader stages that enable the GPU to offload geometry tessellation from the CPU; per-sample fragment shaders and programmable fragment shader input positions; drawing of data generated by OpenGL, or external APIs such as OpenCL, without CPU intervention; shader subroutines for significantly increased programming flexibility; 64-bit double precision floating point shader operations and inputs/outputs for increased rendering accuracy and quality. Khronos has also released an OpenGL 3.3 specification, together with a set of ARB extensions, to enable as much OpenGL 4.0 functionality as possible on previous generation GPU hardware. The latest specifications can be downloaded today in OpenGL Registry. An official feedback forum is online at the OpenGL Forums.
A brief preview of the new features introduced by OpenGL 3.3 and 4.0 - Daniel Rákos
Categories: Developers |
Mar 16, 2010
The Khronos Group continues the progress of streamlining the OpenGL API. One very important step in this battle has been made just a few days ago by releasing two concurrent core releases of the OpenGL specification, namely version 3.3 and 4.0. This is a major update of the standard containing many revolutionary additions to the tool-set of OpenGL that need careful examination. In this article I would like to talk about these new features trying to point out their importance and touching also some practical use case scenarios.
GLLoader supports OpenGL 3.3 and 4.0
Categories: Developers |
Mar 15, 2010
The GLLoader, a subproject of Klay Game Engine, is an OpenGL extension loading library. It supports OpenGL core 1.0 to 4.0, OpenGL ES core 1.0 to 2.0, as well as WGL, GLX, and other GL extensions. The GLLoader also includes a datebase of all entries, tokens and typedefs in OpenGL in XML format.
ATI FirePro driver v8.702 boosts CAD application performance up to 20%
Categories: General | Developers |
Mar 15, 2010
The latest ATI FirePro v8.702 driver release incorporates tremendous application tuning efforts with boosts in OpenGL application performance across the board with some notable standouts: CATIA by more than 25% and 3ds Max & PTC Pro/Engineer by more than 20%. In addition the driver now supports blue-line stereo for synchronizing 3D glasses, 10bit- color in PhotoShop and 5.1 Dolby Digital & 5.1 DTS surround sound over the displayport connector.
V3 has video interview with Khronos explaining OpenGL 4 at GDC
Categories: General | Developers |
Mar 12, 2010
V3.co.uk interview Neil Trevett from the Khronos Group at GDC 2010. Neil explains what OpenGL 4 is all about, how it relates to the developers, users and graphics companies, where OpenGL has been and where it is going. This is an excellent way to spend five minutes to see what all the excitement is about. Watch the video now, or read more about it on the V3 website.
Major Update for the NeoAxis OpenGL accelerated Game Engine (0.84)
Categories:
Mar 12, 2010
Today the NeoAxis Group released a major update for their NeoAxis Game Engine. The set of new features and the numerous improvements make it even easier for developers to produce high-quality applications and games. The changes in the new version enhance the graphics quality, e.g. improved shadow quality. At the same time the overall performance is increased by over 25% and the loading times are significantly reduced. The new exporter supports now Autodesk Maya, morph animation and has a ton of new features helping artists working with the NeoAxis Game Engine.
OpenGL-based ThreeDify Designer 3.1 and ThreeDify Office Designer 3.1 released
Categories: Applications |
Mar 12, 2010
ThreeDify Inc. is pleased to announce general availability of OpenGL-based ThreeDify Designer 3.1 and ThreeDify Office Designer 3.1. ThreeDify Designer 3.1 adds several enhancements plus misc. bug fixes. The notable additions include indoor view mode, enhanced texture imports, support for import and export of a dozen more image formats, as well as object normal flipping and object copy tools. ThreeDify Office Designer is also updated to support ThreeDify Designer 3.1. Both new versions are available for download from our download page.
AMD’s Haemel summarizes what is new OpenGL 3.3 and 4.0
Categories: General | Developers |
Mar 11, 2010
AMD’s Nick Haemel blogs about some of the more significant features and benefits in OpenGL 3.3 and 4.0. The simultaneous release breathes new life into existing hardware while also paving the way for next generation GPUs.
Graphic Remedy launches gDEBugger CL at GDC 2010
Categories: Developers |
Mar 10, 2010
Graphic Remedy, a leading provider of advanced solutions for 3D graphics developers, launched gDEBugger CL at Game Developer Conference 2010. gDEBugger CL allows OpenCL™-based application developers to deliver complex parallel computing applications and significantly improve application performance. gDEBugger CL offers advanced debugging, profiling and memory analysis capabilities that reduce development time, accelerate time to market, help deploy the application on multiple platforms and boost application parallel computing performance. gDEBugger CL supports OpenGL-OpenCL interoperability and works together with gDEBugger GL to display, in a single GUI system, both OpenGL’s and OpenCL’s debugging and profiling data.
The Open Toolkit library 1.0 beta-3 released
Categories: Developers |
Mar 09, 2010
The Open Toolkit library is an open-source wrapper that allows .Net/Mono applications to use OpenGL¸ OpenAL and OpenCL. This release improves stability under multi-threading scenarios, introduces a new multithreading sample, improves inline (intellisense) and hardcopy (PDF) documentation and fixes a large number of secondary issues. The Open Toolkit can be used on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris and *BSD and is especially suitable to rapid development of games, GUIs, virtual reality and scientific visualizations.
Valve source engine overhauled to carry OpenGL
Categories: Applications |
Mar 09, 2010
Steam’s Source engine – which powers all of Valve’s games – has been overhauled to carry OpenGL so that the Bellevue-based studio can now provide Mac owners with native versions of hit properties such as Half-Life. “The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360” said John Cook, Director of Steam Development.
ZGameEditor v1.9.9 for developing small and efficient OpenGL API-based games and applications
Categories: Applications |
Mar 08, 2010
ZGameEditor is a free game authoring tool that generates native high-performance stand-alone compact executables for Win32, Linux x86 and OS X. Now 3 years after initial release ZGameEditor has reached version 1.9.9 and it’s the most feature packed update yet! ZGameEditor is an ideal tool for experimenting with procedural content generation techniques and developing OpenGL-applications. Make games, demos and screen savers using advanced graphics features such as multiple render passes, render targets and shaders. Instant GUI feedback of your changes. No waiting for build times! ZGameEditor is free, Open Source software. New features in 1.9.9 include: - render to texture - multiple render passes - web-connectivity - string support in scripting language - calling external libraries - and many other improvements.
Simtech releases OpenGL assisted SimMold 2010
Categories: Developers |
Mar 08, 2010
Simtech releases SimMold 2010, an advanced GUI which uses OpenGL for post-processing mold flow results.
GPU Caps Viewer 1.8.4 Available
Categories: Applications |
Mar 08, 2010
A new update of GPU Caps Viewer is out with the support of new graphics cards and improved GPU temperature and clocks readings. GPU Caps Viewer is a graphics card information utility and provides detailed data about GPU, OpenGL API support, OpenCL API support and CUDA (GeForce cards). It also includes OpenGL 2, OpenGL 3 and OpenCL demos.
GizmoSDK 2.5 toolkit based on OpenGL, is released to the public community
Categories: Developers |
Mar 01, 2010
Saab Training Systems AB are actively developing the GizmoSDK toolkit with a closed number of customers, but have made available to the public community the GizmoSDK toolkit. The new release has exciting new features like full support for Rapid 3D Mapping, new geometry shaders for tree rendering and new state optimisations for alpha rendering.
Unit testing OpenGL applications by Daniel Rákos
Categories: Developers |
Feb 23, 2010
Nowadays comprehensive testing is a must for any software product. However, it isn’t such a general rule when it comes to graphics applications. Many developers face difficulties when they have to test their rendering codes. Manual tests and visual feedback is sometimes satisfactory but if one would like to have automated regression tests usual approaches seem to fail. Even if at first sight unit testing of rendering code doesn’t look really straightforward, in fact it is. OpenGL is not an exception from this rule as well. In this article I would like to briefly present a few methods how to unit test OpenGL rendering code and also present my choice and the reasons behind the decision.
GPU Pro 2: Call for Authors - advanced rendering techniques for OpenGL
Categories: General | Developers |
Feb 22, 2010
After the tremendous success of the first seven entries to the ShaderX book series, and the upcoming success of the GPU Pro book, we are looking for authors for GPU Pro 2. The upcoming book will cover advanced rendering techniques that run on the DirectX and/or OpenGL run-time or any other run-time with any language available. It will include topics on: Geometry Manipulation; Rendering Techniques; Handheld Devices Programming; Effects in Image Space; Shadows; 3D Engine Design; Graphics Related Tools; Environmental Effects and a dedicated section on mathematics used in graphics programming. Proposals are due by May 17th, 2010. Contact information, an example proposal, writing guidelines and a FAQ can be found at http://gpupro2.blogspot.com/.
ATI Catalyst Driver 10.2 offers Better CrossFire and OpenGL Support
Categories: General | Developers |
Feb 19, 2010
ATI just released Catalyst 10.2. Along with improved OpenGL and OpenCL support, Catalyst 10.2 adds 3 new OpenGL extensions. The AMD blogs are promising this is just the first wave of updates to their driver suite.
A layman’s approach explaining what is OpenCL
Categories: General |
Feb 19, 2010
The Khronos family of websites has a lot of technical information on OpenCL and their technologies. For those who are less technically savvy, this can be frustrating at times. The fine folks over at Develop3D have posted a great article explaining in some detail what OpenCL is, how it applies to the business sector and the manufacturing sector, and of course, how it can help you.
OpenGL 3.2 examples for Linux released with source code
Categories: Developers |
Feb 18, 2010
The nopper.tv website has updated the OpenGL 3.2 and GLSL 1.50 examples by adding source code for Linux computers.
TNGViewer 1.2.1.500 improves OpenGL and system compatibility
Categories: Applications |
Feb 18, 2010
Immaginaria Ltd. is happy to announce an update to TNGViewer, featuring improved OpenGL compatibility for automatic texture mipmaps generation: a new option in the Preferences->General tab chooses between the SGI and the EXT mipmaps generation methods; the former is now the default. Furthermore, system compatibility has been vastly improved on Windows 7 and Mac OS X Tiger. Finally, this release fixes several caching issues in Top Scenes, and provides close-up thumbnail inspection with the right mouse button.
Drishti 2.0 volume exploration and presentation tool using GLSL released
Categories: Applications |
Feb 16, 2010
Drishti is a volume exploration and presentation tool using OpenGL Shading Language shaders and 3D textures. Version 2.0 provides new functionality and allows for large (2K^3) volume exploration even on 32-bit systems. Linux and MacOSX executables will be available shortly. Windows executables and source code are available for download from the google code site.
Calling Open Source Graphics Fanatics to write for Packt
Categories: General | Developers |
Feb 16, 2010
Packt Publishing is looking for Open Source Graphics enthusiasts with an interest in writing to become authors for their Open Source Graphics range. No previous writing experience is necessary, just expert knowledge and a passion for the subject. Complete details are available on the Packt website.
AMD GPU Performance Counters Integration in gDEBugger v5.5
Categories: Developers |
Feb 16, 2010
Graphic Remedy announced the release of gDEBugger version 5.5, an OpenGL and OpenGL ES debugger and profiler which runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and the Apple iPhone. New in this version is a powerful AMD GPU performance counters integration, displaying AMD graphic hardware and driver performance counters in gDEBugger’s Performance Graph and Performance Dashboard views, allowing developers to optimize their application.
gDEBugger for OpenCL - Beta Program
Categories: Developers |
Feb 15, 2010
Graphic Remedy announced the upcoming release of gDEBugger for OpenCL, a real-time OpenCL debugger, performance analyzer and computing memory optimizer. gDEBugger CL will allow OpenCL based application developers to enjoy advanced debugging, profiling and memory analysis capabilities, helping them reduce development time, deliver high quality applications and significantly improve parallel computing performance. For more information and for joining the gDEBugger CL Free Beta Program visit our website.
SilverLining Sky & Weather SDK Introduces HDR support, GLSL shaders
Categories: Applications |
Feb 15, 2010
Sundog Software released version 1.95 of the SilverLining Sky and Weather SDK, used for physically-based visual simulation of the sky and 3D volumetric clouds in games, broadcast video, visualization, and training applications. This new release moves SilverLining to GLSL shaders in OpenGL, increasing compatibility across video cards from different manufacturers. It also introduces support for high-dynamic range (HDR) applications, rendering the sky and clouds in raw units of kilo-candelas per square meter when HDR mode is enabled. Lens flare effects, support for legacy compilers, and various visual quality improvements are also added in version 1.95.
Seac02 LinceoVR 3.3 adds realtime GPU based raytracing to augmented reality mode
Categories: Applications |
Feb 10, 2010
Seac02 LInceoVR 3.3, now supports realitme opengl GPU based raytracing in augmented reality mode, new improvement in standard Opengl mode, realtime shadows or every GPU, and added support to realtime video texure, free trial and free student available.
star3map iPhone 3Gs OpenGL app is Open Source
Categories: Developers | Applications |
Feb 10, 2010
star3map is an augmented reality star and planet charting app for the iPhone 3Gs. It uses your phone’s global position, compass, accelerometer, and the current time to display an image of the sky in whatever direction you point your phone. The full source is available. Some of it under GPL, but the r3 library uses a BSD style license, and it includes Sean Barrett’s truetype and image loading code which is public domain.
TNGViewer 1.2.0.495 extends Top Scenes features and preferences
Categories: Developers |
Feb 10, 2010
Immaginaria Ltd. announced a major update to TNGViewer, featuring cache and navigation enhancements to the Top Scenes option. OpenGL thumbnails are now kept updated with respect to their original files’ modification dates every time a scene is opened. Non-native content (e.g. Autodesk, LightWave) is now cached as native TNG 3D scenes for instantaneous import, and it is kept updated just like OpenGL thumbnails. Furthermore, the Top Scenes option can now be scrolled via the mouse wheel, providing access to the entire Open Recent list. Finally, the preferences dialog contains options to configure all the new features, as well as an option to turn on or off multithreaded QuickTime movie export.
Hardware Tessellation on Radeon in OpenGL
Categories: Developers |
Feb 10, 2010
Here is an article that explains the current state of hardware tessellation on Radeon graphics cards and how to use it in OpenGL. A demo showing tessellation in real time is provided.
Instance culling using geometry shaders by Daniel Rákos
Categories: Developers |
Feb 09, 2010
Since the appearance of Shader Model 4.0 people wonder how to take advantage of the newly introduced programmable pipeline stage. The most important feature enabled by geometry shaders is that one can change the amount of emitted primitives inside the pipeline. The first thing that a naive developer would try to do with it is geometry tesselation. However, the new shader performs very bad when used for tesselation in a real life scenario even though there are demos show casting this possibility. If we take a closer look at the new feature we observe that the most revolutionary in it is not that it can raise the number of emitted primitives but that it can discard them. This article would like to present a rendering technique that takes advantage of this aspect of geometry shaders to enable the GPU accelerated culling of higher order primitives. Also it features an OpenGL 3.2 demo for showing the technique in practice.
OpenCSG 1.3.0 image-based CSG renderer with better support for MDI applications
Categories: Applications |
Feb 08, 2010
OpenCSG is an OpenGL API-based library for doing image-space rendering of shapes made up by constructive solid geometry (CSG). The new release 1.3.0 implements support for applications with a multiple document interface and use OpenCSG in different OpenGL windows.
The Cafu Engine using OpenGL is now open source
Categories: Applications |
Feb 08, 2010
The Cafu Engine (formerly Ca3D-Engine) is now available to everyone as free software under the GNU General Public License! The source code as well as precompiled binaries are available at our Downloads page, and the new Developers page explains how to get started with the source code quickly. In addition to the compressed archives, the source code is also available directly from the Subversion repository. Learn more
ATI Radeon HD 5450 provides OpenGL 3.2 graphics
Categories: Processors |
Feb 04, 2010
AMD launched its least expensive video chipset capable of OpenGL 3.2 and DirectX 11 graphics. The ATI Radeon HD 5450 has all the same visual effects as the 5600 and 5800 lines but is trimmed down to 80 stream processors, 8 texture units and a 650MHz engine clock speed. The design allows for extremely quiet cards: it can either use a low-speed fan in a single slot or a completely fanless design in a slightly larger space.
Irrlicht Engine 1.7 using OpenGL has been released
Categories: Developers |
Feb 03, 2010
Irrlicht version 1.7 has been released. New rendering features are: Multiple Render Target (MRT), geometry shaders (OpenGL only), possibility to access texture mipmaps and to provide custom mipmaps, separate TextureWrap modes for U and V coordinates and the option to mirror wrap. Enhanced options for 2D drawing like thickness, anti-aliasing and filtering. We added a new VertexManipulator interface for simple creation of vertex manipulation algorithms. Zipfiles now support Bzip2 and LZMA compression and AES encryption. Enabled VBO Support for skydomes and other standard meshes. Ogre .mesh format skeletal animations now supported, and Ogre 32bit index meshes as well. NPK (Nebula device archive) support added. Support for external windows under OS X. And of course lots of other improvements and bug fixes.
Tech Soup OpenGL 3 Training announced
Categories: Developers |
Feb 03, 2010
TechSoup has announced a new OpenGL 3 training course in Los Angeles from March 30 to April 2. Regardless of if you’re new to graphics, new to OpenGL, or just looking to uncover the latest techniques that OpenGL will allow, this is your course.
FurMark 1.8.0 OpenGL Stress Test Available
Categories: Developers |
Feb 03, 2010
The new version of FurMark, the popular graphics card stress test for overclockers, is available. FurMark is an OpenGL 2 stress test and benchmark for Windows and uses fur rendering to overheat the graphics card. This new version adds a new effect based on vertex displacement mapping as well as an increased rendering workload.
Optimizing OpenGL on the iPhone
Categories: Developers |
Feb 02, 2010
Tim Omernick from the popular gaming company, ngmoco, provides a broad overview of OpenGL on the iPhone. The focus is on optimization and includes demo’s and samples in the Video.
GLUS for OpenGL 3.x and one more OpenGL 3.2 example program released
Categories: Developers |
Jan 29, 2010
The nopper.tv website has updated the OpenGL 3.2 and GLSL 1.50 example programs and added one more example program (Geometry Shader). Also, GLUS is introduced and used. GLUS in an OpenGL 3.x helper library, useful for rapid prototyping.
TNGViewer 1.1.1.485 adds multithreaded movie export
Categories: Applications |
Jan 26, 2010
Immaginaria Ltd is happy to announce an update to TNGViewer, featuring support for exporting QuickTime movies from a dedicated thread. The main thread prepares OpenGL frames that are encoded separately, resulting in improved movie export performance and smoother user navigation during export. This release also fixes several issues with some Intel chipsets, plus an issue with the ESC key not exiting fullscreen mode reliably. Finally, a serious regression was fixed in the companion TNGPlayer plugin on Windows with most Web browsers.
ATI Radeon E4690 MXM for high performance OGL 3.1 graphics & HD video on embedded systems
Categories: Processors |
Jan 25, 2010
The ATI Radeon E4690 MXM 3.0 is designed for compute intensive, embedded applications such as digital signage, image recognition, signal processing and surveillance, radar processing, target acquisition, synthetic vision, medical imaging, and more. It supports OpenGL 3.1 as well as DX10.1 with 320 stream processors, 512MB of on-chip memory, 128-bit memory interface and ATI’s UVD 2.0.
AMD GPU PerfStudio 2.1 now supports OpenGL 3.0 and DirectX11
Categories: Applications |
Jan 20, 2010
AMD announces the release of GPU PerfStudio 2.1 with new support for debugging and optimizing DirectX11 and OpenGL 3.0 graphics applications. GPU PerfStudio 2.1 incorporates an API Trace viewer, Frame Debugger, and powerful Frame Profiler to make it a versatile and effective debugging tool for the graphics developer.
Uniform Buffers VS Texture Buffers by Daniel Rákos
Categories: Developers |
Jan 19, 2010
OpenGL 3.1 introduced two new sources from where shaders can retrieve their data, namely uniform buffers and texture buffers. These can be used to accelerate rendering when heavy usage of application provided data happens, such as a skeletal animation, especially when combined with geometry instancing. The functionality has been in the core specification for about a year now, and there are few demos out there to show their usage. As such, there is a lot of confusion about when to use them and which one is more suitable for a particular use case. This article is an attempt at clearing up any confusion, and hopefully will show in a simple manner, which buffer should be used for your needs.
ATI Stream OpenCL Technical Overview Video Series
Categories: Developers |
Jan 18, 2010
AMD Developer Centeral has posted the ATI Stream OpenCL Technical Overview Video Series. The series of 5 videos provides ATI Stream developers an overview of the OpenCL API and OpenCL C programming language.
Here is a summary of the videos by AMD's Justin Hensley:
- Video 1: What is OpenCL? (7:44)
- Video 2: What is OpenCL? (continued) (6:37)
- Video 3: Resource Setup (11:06)
- Video 4: Kernel Execution (13:00)
- Video 5: Programming with OpenCL C (17:59)
Lightsprint SDK 2010 brings new OpenGL renderer
Categories: Applications |
Jan 18, 2010
Lightsprint released Lightsprint SDK 2010, global illumination solution for games and 3d visualizations. New version brings out of the box support for 3 game engines and 60 file formats including COLLADA, new faster OpenGL based renderer, realtime scene manipulation, simplified integration and samples doing more in up to 5x fewer lines of code. Lightsprint is also pleased to announce new Lightsprint SDK licensee, French game studio VectorCell. Lightsprint SDK illuminates games based on Gamebryo 2.x and 3.x, Unreal Engine 3 and other engines, and also non-game visualizations. It renders global illumination in real-time, or bakes it into lightmaps, radiosity normal maps or ambient occlusion.
GLC_Lib 2.2 Alpha 2 out (Graphic library class on OpenGL API)
Categories: Developers |
Jan 18, 2010
GLC_lib is a C++ library for high performance 3D application based on OpenGL and QT4 GUI.
- Built in 3D view manipulator (Track Ball, rotate table).
- Designed to add user 3D view manipulator.
- Provided 3D primitive (Point, Circle, Line, Polyline, Mesh, Box, Cylinder, Rectangle).
- Designed to add user 3D prilmitive.
- 3D format supported : o Collada V1.4 o 3DXML ASCII V3 and V4 o OBJ o 3DS o STL (ASCII and binary) o OFF and COFF
- Material texturing with image file format supported by QT4.
- Basic Shader support (GLSL). * Scene Graph with the support of Reference, Instance and Occurrence.
- Non Convex polygon partitioning.
- Static Level of detail support.
- Pixel culling support.
- Possibility to cache 3DXML in binary to speed up loading time.
SpiderGL: a Javascript 3D Graphics library on top of WebGL
Categories: Developers |
Jan 18, 2010
SpiderGL is a JavaScript 3D Graphics library which relies on WebGL for realtime rendering. The philosophy behind SpiderGL is : to provide typical structures and algorithms for realtime rendering to developers of 3D graphics web application, without forcing them to comply with some specific paradigm (i.e. scene graphs) nor preventing low level access to the underlying graphics layer (WebGL). Some of the features of the library include linear algebra, transformation stacks, interactors, typical geometric objects, GLUT-like event handling, complete support to WebGL objects configurable via options parameters and smart mechanisms for binding mesh vertex attributes, uniforms and samplers.
Imagination Technologies announces POWERVR SGX545 graphics IP core with OpenGL 3.2 and OpenCL 1.0
Categories: Processors |
Jan 12, 2010
Imagination Technologies announces the POWERVR SGX545. SGX545 will support OpenGL ES 2.x and OpenGL 3.2 to deliver class leading 3D graphics performance as well as support OpenCL 1.0 full profile capability which will enable mobile and embedded applications to take maximum advantage of the capabilities offered by these GPU APIs for both 3D graphics and general purpose applications.
ALT Software wins multi-million dollar OpenGL ES and OpenVG contract
Categories: General | Processors |
Jan 12, 2010
ALT Software, an embedded graphics leader won the contract to develop OpenGL ES and Open VG device drivers for POWERVR SGX graphics IP core in next-generation System on Chip processor designed for high performance in power constrained devices. ALT Software has been developing OpenGL and Safety-Critical 2D and 3D solutions since 1994.
8MonkeyLabs ‘Darkest of Days’ game for Windows runs on OpenGL
Categories: Developers | Applications |
Jan 12, 2010
Shortly after ‘Darkest of Days’ was released, Gamasutra.com gave 8MonkeyLabs the opportunity to post a postmortem on the making of the game. This is a great opportunity to see some of what is involved in the making of a 3D action game on todays technology. Released for Windows PC and XBox 360, Darkest of Days uses 8MonkeyLabs own proprietary Marmoset Engine, which in turn uses OpenGL, Physx, SpeedTree and OpenAL. Costing $1.7M and taking three and a half years to develop, Darkest of Days contains roughly 200,000 lines of source code. The complete postmortem can be read online at Gamasutra.com.
Wolfire Games: Why you should use OpenGL and not DirectX
Categories: General | Developers |
Jan 08, 2010
Wolfire Games develops innovative, independent games for Linux, Mac OS, and Windows. In this article they explain why they are using OpenGL as their computer graphics API standard of choice, instead of the competing Direct3D. In essence they chose OpenGL because it is open, it supports cross-platform development, and is more powerful. In the end they ask game developers to do their own research and not just go with what marketing has to say, before choosing the API.
Voreen 2.0 using OpenGL and GLSL for GPU-based rendering has been released
Categories: Developers |
Jan 05, 2010
A new release of the Voreen volume rendering engine using OpenGL and GLSL for GPU-based rendering, is out now. Voreen 2.0 includes several new features and re-engineered code of some of the existing concepts. Among other things, native support for multiple view applications has been added by providing a multi canvas mechanism as well as supporting linking between properties. Furthermore, improved volume handling, a better serialization framework and several new processors have been added. Additionally, developing your own processors became more easy. Many of the new concepts are now demonstrated in the new tutorial video section.
OpenCSG 1.2.0 image-based CSG renderer with improved FBO support
Categories: Developers |
Jan 04, 2010
OpenCSG is an OpenGL API-based library for doing image-space rendering of shapes made up by constructive solid geometry (CSG). The new version 1.2.0 contains several improvements and bug-fixes for the rendering path using frame buffer objects, which is now the default rendering path.
GLEW 1.5.2 Release Adds Support for OpenGL 3.2 and Many New Extensions
Categories: Developers |
Jan 04, 2010
The OpenGL Extension Wrangler Library (GLEW) is a cross-platform open-source C/C++ extension loading library. GLEW provides efficient run-time mechanisms for determining which OpenGL extensions are supported on the target platform. OpenGL core and extension functionality is exposed in a single header file. Version 1.5.2 adds support for OpenGL 3.1, OpenGL 3.2 and many new vendor, EXT and ARB extensions.
ATI Stream SDK 2.0 with OpenCL CPU and GPU support final release
Categories: Developers |
Dec 22, 2009
The first production release of ATI Stream SDK with OpenCL 1.0 support is out for Windows XP, Vista, 7 as well as openSuse 11.0 and Ubuntu 9.04. The ATI implementation of OpenCL lets developers use combined CPU and GPU power for accelerating applications. This release supports all FirePro workstation cards, as well as the consumer Radeon HD 4000 and above. The update also offers preview support for OpenCL / OpenGL / DirectX 10 interoperability, along with double-precision floating point basic arithmetic in OpenCL C kernels.
SilverLining 1.91 OpenGL Based Real-time Sky Middleware Improves Stratus, Atmospheric Limb Rendering
Categories: Applications |
Dec 22, 2009
SilverLining version 1.91 is now available from Sundog Software. SilverLining renders the sky and everything in it, including volumetric clouds, for OpenGL developers on Mac, Windows, and Linux. The big new feature is improved stratus clouds - you’ll now see some real 3D depth at the tops of the clouds. This geometry is computed on the GPU using a Cg vertex program for OpenGL users. We also made some improvements to “geocentric mode” and the rendering of the atmosphere from space.
OpenGL 3 Samples Pack updated
Categories: Developers |
Dec 22, 2009
The OpenGL 3 Samples Pack is a pack of OpenGL 3.2 C++ code samples to document the API. They are using the core profile features, not any deprecated features. The version 1.2.1 supports Windows with Visual Studio and Linux with GCC; nVidia and ATI cards with the lastest drivers. It contains 25 samples.
ThreeDify releases OpenGL-based ActiveSolid 3.0
Categories: Applications |
Dec 22, 2009
ThreeDify announces general availability of the highly anticipated, OpenGL-based ActiveSolid Pro/Standard v3.0.0 - a major upgrade over the previous version. The new release features the following notable additions: full support for Windows 7 and Microsoft PowerPoint for the first time, prelimilary support for Microsoft Office Live Server Beta and support for texture and material color import from the currently supported file formats. With this new release, ActiveSolid users can now create and embed their live 3D designs within MS PowerPoint as they have been able to do with MS Excel and MS Word. It represents an significant step in ThreeDify’s effort towards making 3D designs available anywhere and everywhere.
GPU Caps Viewer 1.8.0 With OpenGL 3 and OpenCL Support
Categories: Applications |
Dec 18, 2009
GPU Caps Viewer 1.8.0 is available for download. This new version adds OpenGL 3 as well as OpenCL support with a new panel and several OpenCL demos. GPU Caps Viewer is a graphics card utility for Windows. It quickly describes the essential capabilities of your graphics card including GPU type, amount of VRAM, GPU temperature, OpenGL, OpenCL and CUDA API support. I also offers OpenGL and OpenCL demos to test the latest features of your video card.
seac02 Announces Eligo Web—Augmented and Virtual Reality Opengl based plugin
Categories: Applications |
Dec 18, 2009
Seac02 announces their new platform and plugin for interactive content online. Eligo web is OpenGL based, and features HDRI lightning, realtime shadows, realtime animations and 3D-sound. It currently runs on every windows based browser, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera. The Eligo web plugin supports tag and texture realtime tracking for web based augmented reality. Eligo web plugin is the first plugin in the market with realitme gpu based raytracing. The solution can be adopted for industrial diesign, viral marketing and new experimental e-commerce, where augmented reality allows the user to place virtual products at home. Eligo web is free for all the students.
AMD releases driver with OpenGL 3.2 support
Categories: General | Developers |
Dec 17, 2009
This release of ATI Catalyst™ provides support for OpenGL 3.2 extension support on the ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 Series and ATI Radeon™ HD 2000 Series. The following is a list of OpenGL™ 3.2 features and extensions added in ATI Catalyst™ 9.12:
- Support for OpenGL Shading Language 1.50.
- BGRA vertex component ordering (GL_ARB_vertex_array_bgra).
- Drawing commands allowing modification of the base vertex index (GL_ARB_draw_elements_base_vertex).
- Shader fragment coordinate convention control (GL_ARB_fragment_coord_conventions).
- Provoking vertex control (GL_ARB_provoking_vertex).
- Seamless cube map filtering (GL_ARB_seamless_cube_map).
- Multisampled textures and texture samplers for specific sample locations (GL_ARB_texture_multisample).
- Fragment depth clamping (GL_ARB_depth_clamp).
- Geometry shaders (GL_ARB_geometry_shader4).
- Fence sync objects (GL_ARB_sync).
View complete release notes on the ATI website.
Code samples for OpenGL 3.2 and GLSL 1.5 released
Categories: Developers |
Dec 17, 2009
On the following website, you will find basic and complex OpenGL 3.2 and GLSL 1.5 examples plus source code.
The Hacks of Life offer regularly updated OpenGL tips and tutorials
Categories: Developers |
Dec 17, 2009
Benjamin Supnik writes with some regularity about various OpenGL programming issues. His blog “The Hacks of Life” offer well written and thorough explanations of the problem and the solution.
OpenCTM 3D viewer adds conversion functionality
Categories: Applications |
Dec 14, 2009
The latest version of the OpenCTM 3D mesh viewer (part of the OpenCTM v1.0.2 SDK) has support for loading, viewing and saving several different file formats (OpenCTM, COLLADA, STL, PLY, OBJ and 3DS), making it a convenient companion tool for 3D graphics developers and artists. The viewer uses OpenGL for its 3D view and GUI, and works under Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, etc. OpenCTM is a file format, software library and a tool set for compression of triangle meshes. It fits well with the current OpenGL rendering pipeline, with support for custom shader attributes among other things.
Khronos Group WebGL WG releases draft specification of WebGL
Categories: Developers |
Dec 11, 2009
The Khronos WebGL WG released a draft specification of WebGL, a royalty-free, cross-platform API that brings OpenGL ES 2.0 to the web as a 3D drawing context within the HTML5 Canvas element, exposed as low-level Document Object Model interfaces. It uses the OpenGL shading language, GLSL ES, and can be cleanly combined with other web content that is layered on top or underneath the 3D content. It is ideally suited for dynamic 3D web applications in the JavaScript programming language, and will be fully integrated in leading web browsers.
ARB Working Group approves updates to the OpenGL 3.2 and OpenGL Shading Language 1.50
Categories: General | Developers |
Dec 08, 2009
The ARB Working Group has approved updates to the OpenGL 3.2 (release 20091207) and OpenGL Shading Language 1.50 (release 11) Specifications which correct many minor issues that have been identified since GL 3.2 and GLSL 1.50 were initially released. Corresponding updates to GLSL 1.40 (release 8) and GLSL 1.30 (release 10) Specifications have also been released, and will be followed shortly by corresponding updates to OpenGL 3.1 and 3.0. All Specifications are available in the OpenGL Registry .
Nokia Releases Qt 4.6 with a new OpenGL paint engine
Categories: Applications |
Dec 02, 2009
Nokia has released Version 4.6 of its Qt cross-platform application and UI framework. Key performance improvements include an optimized, re-written Qt GraphicsView rendering algorithm and a new OpenGL paint engine. Qt 4.6 includes support for the Symbian platform for the first time, and adds Windows 7, Apple Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard), and the upcoming Maemo 6 to the list of Qt-supported platforms.
TNGViewer 1.1.0.470 adds support for multiple OpenGL windows
Categories: Applications |
Nov 30, 2009
Immaginaria Ltd is proud to announce a major update to TNGViewer, featuring support for multiple independent windows, each with its own state, via the File->New option. This enables viewing multiple models and scenes in a natural way. OpenGL resources (such vertex and fragment shaders, textures, and so on) are shared among windows as much as possible: e.g. if you open multiple models that refer to the same textures, a single copy of any given texture will be used. This release also adds support for a couple of useful preference settings, namely the initial antialias level and frame rate for new windows.
HPMC OpenGL library that extractes iso-surfaces of volumetric data directly on the GPU
Categories: Applications |
Nov 30, 2009
HPMC is an implementation of the method described in C. Dyken, G. Ziegler, C. Theobalt, H.-P. Seidel, High-speed Marching Cubes using Histogram Pyramids, Computer Graphics Forum 27 (8), 2008. The library analyzes a lattice of scalar values describing a scalar field that is either stored in a Texture3D or can be accessed through an application-provided snippet of shader code. The output is a sequence of vertex positions and normals that form a triangulation of the iso-surface. HPMC provides traversal code to be included in an application vertex shader, which allows direct extraction in the vertex shader. Using the OpenGL transform feedback mechanism, the triangulation can be stored directly into a buffer object.
ThreeDify releases AsdGraph3D Excel Addin v1.5.5
Categories: Applications |
Nov 24, 2009
The new version of OpenGL based AsdGraph3D Excel Addin adds Spin And Animate mode for power presentation and visualization of true 3D graphs within Excel.
NeoAxis OpenGL accelerated Game Engine 0.83 released
Categories: Developers |
Nov 23, 2009
NeoAxis Engine, version 0.83 was just released and is a step to web integration, supporting all major browsers including FireFox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari. NeoAxis Engine is a complete integrated development environment for creating interactive 3D graphics including 3D virtual worlds, AAA games, and realistic simulations. The system comprised of both a real-time 3D engine and a suite of full featured tools supports both OpenGL and DirectX
Ardor3D - a Java based OpenGL scenegraph engine - releases 0.6
Categories: Developers |
Nov 23, 2009
Ardor3D’s development team is proud to announce the 0.6 release of their API. This new release features several new major features such as CPU and GPU based skinning, “MegaTexture” support, procedural terrain and image generation, an Ardor3D based user-interface system, improved automatic resource cleanup and much more.
TNGViewer 1.0.1.461 extends OpenGL support and more
Categories: Applications |
Nov 18, 2009
Immaginaria Ltd. is happy to announce an update to TNGViewer, featuring support for older OpenGL cards that lack rectangular texture features. These include several integrated chipsets such as the Intel 915 and 945 families, as well as others; vertex shading support is still required on all cards. The latest TNGViewer release also fixes a nasty issue, which prevented texturing to be applied correctly to several popular models, such as the free 3D resources from NASA.
VMWare releases new Gallium3D driver with support for OpenCL and OpenGL
Categories: Applications |
Nov 18, 2009
VMWare recently released new Gallium3D drivers usable by guest operating systems running within VMware’s virtualization platform. The drivers will allow virtualized guests to have accelerated access to X11, OpenGL, OpenCL, X-Video, XvMC, and all sorts of other possibilities, limited only by what’s supported by the available state trackers.
NVIDIA to release R195 driver with new extensions for OpenCL 1.0 toolkit
Categories: Developers |
Nov 17, 2009
NVIDIA and its ecosystem partners will deliver, over the next few months, the industry’s broadest set of software releases to developers using GPU Computing in their work. These updates feature major releases across a broad spectrum of GPU Computing development languages, tools and libraries. NVIDIA is releasing its R195 driver which includes new extensions to its OpenCL 1.0 conformant driver and toolkit. The new extensions include support for double precision, OpenGL interoperability and the new OpenCL Installable Client Device (ICD).
Khronos Demonstrates OpenCL Momentum at SC09
Categories: General |
Nov 16, 2009
The Khronos™ Group today announced strong industry support and a wide range of shipping products utilizing OpenCL™ at SC09 (an international conference for high-performance computing). A number of demonstrations and tutorials from Khronos Group members highlighting the power and scalability of OpenCL will also be a major part of SC09. Khronos released a conformance suite for the OpenCL 1.0 specification in May 2009 that exhaustively tests both the functionality and numerical accuracy of OpenCL implementations before they are licensed to use the OpenCL trademark. A number of shipping products from working group members have successfully passed OpenCL conformance including products from AMD, Apple and NVIDIA. The current list of conformant products can be found on the Khronos website.
The Open Toolkit 1.0 beta-1 released
Categories: Developers |
Nov 10, 2009
The Open Toolkit library is an advanced, low-level C# wrapper around OpenGL, OpenCL and OpenAL. It is suitable for games, scientific applications and any other project that requires 3d graphics, audio or compute functionality. Version 1.0 beta-1 introduces type-safe OpenGL ES 2.0 binding and a large number of new OpenGL tutorials on triangle picking, shaders, cubemaps and vertex buffer objects. It also contains a significant number of bug- and stability fixes; improves multi-monitor support; and improves support for multithreading. Due to the amount and impact of the included bug fixes, users of previous versions are strongly encouraged to upgrade.
LinceoVR 3.2 realtime GPU raytracing based on OpenGL shading language is released
Categories: Applications |
Nov 10, 2009
LinceoVR 3.2 has been released. Version 3.2 adds real-time raytracing GPU based features, real-time texture tracking for augmented reality, an FBX importer for 3D models and animations, and a free OpenGL based viewer. The OpenGL viewer can be either a stand alone solution, or a web-based plugin controlled by JavaScript calls to see 3D interactive models online in VR and AR mode. Both LinceoVR and the viewer support HDRI lighting, real-time shadows and animations, tag and texture tracking for augmented reality, and run on all OpenGL compliant graphics cards.
Parallels Desktop 5.0 Virtualization Application with OpenGL 2.1 support announced
Categories: Applications |
Nov 05, 2009
Parallels Desktop 5.0 for Mac was announced with its developer claiming this version of virtualization software runs 64-bit Windows 7 22% faster than its nearest competitor on a MacBook Pro. Part of the speed improvements are thanks to a graphics upgrade using OpenGL. Seven times better graphics performance for games and 3D applications than the previous version with Direct X 9Ex with Shader Model 3 and OpenGL 2.1 support. Superior graphics performance for Linux guests through OpenGL 2.1 support.
SUBSTANCE - new realtime 3D application using OpenGL
Categories: Applications |
Nov 03, 2009
Stephane Marty presents SUBSTANCE for Windows XP/Vista/Seven. SUBSTANCE is a new realtime 3D application for producing photorealistic Evolutionary and Organic Art powered by new technologies P.O.M.E. (Procedural Organic Modeling Engine) and P.U.R.E. (Physically-based Unbiased Rendering Engine). SUBSTANCE uses OpenGL for realtime rendering, including global illumination. A free version is available for download from NeuroSystems’ website.
Full GTC OpenGL presentation available with audio
Categories: Developers |
Oct 29, 2009
The GPU Technology Conference’s complete OpenGL tutorial “OpenGL: The Train Has Left the Station” is now available for streaming. Hear and see slides presented by NVIDIA’s OpenGL experts: Barthold Lichtenbelt, Mark Kilgard, and Michael Gold. Learn about OpenGL’s future feature set, including Shader Model 5.0 and programable tessellation; interopability with CUDA; and OpenGL 3.2’s features.
EMotion FX v3.8 released, now completely OpenGL based
Categories: Applications |
Oct 27, 2009
EMotion FX v3.8 is now completely OpenGL based. EMotion FX is a real-time character animation and model export system.
S3 Graphics announces 5400E Power Efficient GPGPU - supports OpenGL 3.1 and OpenCL
Categories: Processors |
Oct 23, 2009
S3 Graphics announced the OpenCL 1.0 capable Chrome 5400E GPGPU processor. The 5400E features native support of OpenCL, the industry’s best GFLOPS per watt rating including, a OpenGL 3.1 / DirectX® 10.1 graphics engine, ChromotionHD video core for HD video decode including Blu-ray, H.264, and VC-1, a video encode engine, and an OpenVG 1.1 engine. The 5400E is the most versatile GPU for embedded applications requiring longevity, customization, performance, features, and low power. Complete details are available on the S3 Graphics website.
The Open Toolkit 0.9.9-3 improves OpenGL 3.2 support
Categories: Developers |
Oct 21, 2009
The Open Toolkit library is an advanced, low-level C# wrapper around OpenGL, OpenAL and OpenCL. It is suitable for games, scientific applications and any other project that requires 3d graphics, audio or compute functionality. The 0.9.9-3 release resolves a large number of issues in the OpenGL and OpenCL bindings, the NativeWindow and the GLControl classes, as well as the math library. Morevore, it adds type-safe wrappers for OpenGL 3.2, as well as Icon and text input support to NativeWindow.
NVIDIA RealityServer combines CUDA, OpenGL and iRay to get 3D Cloud Computing Using Tesla GPUs
Categories: Applications | Processors |
Oct 21, 2009
NVIDIA and Mental Images announced the new NVIDIA RealityServer platform for cloud computing. The RealityServer platform uses CUDA and iray photo-realistic rendering technology to combine OpenGL rendering with ray-tracing for best quality. Although rendering is not yet done in real time, it is pretty close, and pretty impressive. What would normally take a person a couple of hours to render, can be done in a few seconds on the RealityServer platform.
All About Shadow Volumes presentation
Categories: Developers |
Oct 20, 2009
Stenciled shadow volumes provide a GPU-accelerated basis for shadow determination. Learn from this SIGGRAPH 2004 presentation how OpenGL features such as stencil testing, wrapping stencil operations, two-sided stencil testing, and depth clamping (now a standard part of OpenGL 3.2) provide the API necessary to optimize shadow volume rendering in your 3D application.
Cairo-Dock 2.1.0 Released, OpenGL Mode Now Works With The Latest OpenSource ATI And Intel Drivers
Categories: Applications |
Oct 20, 2009
Cairo Dock v2.0 is a favoured dock for the Linux operating system. Unfortunately, when it first came out, some Intel and ATI graphic card users were not able to run it in OpenGL mode, which is what’s amazing about Cairo Dock. Users of Cairo Dock may now rejoice, the dock in OpenGL mode now works with the very latest OpenSource drivers for ATI and Intel video card.
OpenGL Connected Component Labeling
Categories: Developers |
Oct 19, 2009
GPUCL is an OpenGL implementation of Connected Component Labeling (blob detection). The implementation makes use of framebuffer blending, GLSL fragment and vertex shaders, occlusion queries and stencil routing. Every step is performed entirely on the GPU using the OpenGL API. This project was developed as part of my Master’s thesis. A compiled win32 binary is included with a sample image. Documentation is also included detailing the framework.
OpenGL 3 Samples Pack
Categories: Developers |
Oct 16, 2009
OpenGL 3.1 and 3.2 code samples are available to document the OpenGL API. These samples do not use any deprecated OpenGL code, and are aim at getting you started with the most recent API and its lastest features: Blocks, vertex array object, instancing, framebuffer object, mapped buffer range, texture rectangle, texture array, compressed texture and more.
DMP announces a two day getting start GLSL Programming training course
Categories: Developers |
Oct 16, 2009
DMP has announced a new two day getting start GLSL Programming training course on December 10th and 11th 2009. This course introduces the world of programmable pipeline by explaining basic topics of the GLSL(OpenGL Shading Language) which is a core feature of OpenGL ES 2.x and OpenGL 2.x. The course is offered in Japan in Japanese.
Toon Boom Studio 5 offers OpenGL enabled features
Categories: Applications |
Oct 15, 2009
Toon Boom has released version 5 of their animation software. An animation application ideal for students and hobbyists looking for an easy-to-use, multi-technique animation software. Features include stop-motion, traditional digital animation, traditional paper animation, cut-out and rotoscoping and much more. Toon Boom Studio 5 includes OpenGL enabled anti-aliasing, for smooth and clean renders.
ATI Stream SDK v2 beta 4 offers OpenCL GPU and CPU support
Categories: Developers |
Oct 14, 2009
The new ATI Stream SDK v2.0 - beta 4 adds OpenCL GPU support to the existing CPU support. OpenCL is about accelerating applications on heterogeneous systems - ALL the processors in your system. With AMD’s beta 4 OpenCL implementation, you will be able to take one source code base and re-target it to your CPUs or GPUs - it will run on both - and take advantage of your entire platform. Khronos has a forum thread open for discussions.
TechSoup offers an intensive 4 day OpenGL 3 course
Categories: General |
Oct 13, 2009
Bolt yourself to your chair, because it’s going to be an intense 4 days of OpenGL 3. Regardless of if you’re new to graphics, new to OpenGL, or just looking to uncover the latest techniques that OpenGL will allow, this is your course. We’ll teach you all aspects of OpenGL 3 from soup (of course) to nuts, or from triangles to fragments. A complete outline is available on the Khronos website or on the TechSoup website.
Night Vision Post Processing GLSL Shader
Categories: Developers |
Oct 13, 2009
OpenGL 2.0 compatible night vision post processing shader in OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL). The complete source code is provided with a demo, showing the shader in action.
ThreeDify releases OpenGL-based AsdGraph3D Excel Addin v1.5.3
Categories: Applications |
Oct 13, 2009
This new release adds three predefined 2D views (XY, YZ and XZ) of 3D graphs, enabling both 3D and 2D plots of the same graph for enhanced data visualization. The new release also adds several other GUI enhancements.
Cg 2.2 October 2009 now available
Categories: Developers |
Oct 13, 2009
The October 2009 release of Cg Toolkit 2.2 is now available. Supporting dozens of different OpenGL and DirectX profile targets, Cg 2.2 allows you to incorporate stunning, interactive effects within your 3D applications and share them between other Cg applications, across graphics APIs, and most operating systems (Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS X for Tiger & Leopard, x86 Linux 32-bit & 64-bit, x86 Solaris 32-bit & 64-bit).
NVIDIA posts OpenGL 3.2 and More presentation
Categories: Developers |
Oct 09, 2009
Mark Kilgard at NVIDIA discussed OpenGL 3.2 and NVIDIA’s further extensions to OpenGL at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose last week. Learn about OpenGL’s latest features and how NVIDIA is enhancing OpenGL.
SolidKit Library now supports development of OpenGL applications in .NET
Categories: Developers |
Oct 09, 2009
The SolidKit Library is a programming library for development of 3D/2D graphics applications for Microsoft Windows in C++ and .NET using OpenGL. The library provides data-model-independent classes for easy camera navigation in 3D/2D space, provides functions for objects manipulation and editing, supports printing of OpenGL renders, provides 3D geometry mathematics functions and Constructive solid geometry for triangle meshes.
Unigine supports OpenGL 3.2
Categories: Applications |
Oct 08, 2009
Unigine makes more leaps and bounds as it now supports OpenGL 3.2. Added in the latest version of Unigine: support of OpenGL 3.2—MSAA on scattering and SSAO; support of signed textures for normal maps, added new mesh_tessellation_paint_base base material, granted access to ObjectMeshSkinned via C++ API and updated the C++ API documentation. Plus many bug fixes.
Stefan Gustavson presents an Improved distance transform method
Categories: Developers |
Oct 06, 2009
Stefan Gustavson has developed a distance transform method that takes an anti-aliased alpha map as input and computes a distance field with accurate sub-pixel resolution, without the need for a 4K+ binary alpha map—a modestly sized alpha map rendered with proper AA is enough. In 2007, Chris Green at Valve presented a method for crisp, anti-aliased real time contour graphics based on distance map textures. The method is very useful, but all classic distance transform methods use binary input images and therefore require almost insane resolutions to yield a good enough distance map for this application. A pre-publication write-up and GPL source code is available.