1 <HTML> 2 3 <TITLE>Mesa Introduction</TITLE> 4 5 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mesa.css"></head> 6 7 <BODY> 8 9 <H1>Introduction</H1> 10 11 <p> 12 Mesa is an open-source implementation of the 13 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/" target="_parent">OpenGL</a> specification - 14 a system for rendering interactive 3D graphics. 15 </p> 16 17 <p> 18 A variety of device drivers allows Mesa to be used in many different 19 environments ranging from software emulation to complete hardware acceleration 20 for modern GPUs. 21 </p> 22 23 <p> 24 Mesa ties into several other open-source projects: the 25 <a href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/" target="_parent">Direct Rendering 26 Infrastructure</a> and <a href="http://x.org" target="_parent">X.org</a> to 27 provide OpenGL support to users of X on Linux, FreeBSD and other operating 28 systems. 29 </p> 30 31 32 33 <H1>Project History</H1> 34 35 <p> 36 The Mesa project was originally started by Brian Paul. 37 Here's a short history of the project. 38 </p> 39 40 <p> 41 August, 1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time. The project 42 has no name at that point. I was simply interested in writing a simple 43 3D graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API. I was partially 44 inspired by the <em>VOGL</em> library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL. 45 I had been programming with IRIS GL since 1991. 46 </p> 47 48 <p> 49 November 1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my OpenGL-like 50 graphics library on the internet. SGI was generally receptive to the 51 idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal department, I get permission 52 to release it. 53 </p> 54 55 <p> 56 February 1995: Mesa 1.0 is released on the internet. I expected that 57 a few people would be interested in it, but not thousands. 58 I was soon receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a 59 daily basis. That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa. The 60 name Mesa just popped into my head one day. SGI had asked me not to use 61 the terms <em>"Open"</em> or <em>"GL"</em> in the project name and I didn't 62 want to make up a new acronym. Later, I heard of the Mesa programming 63 language and the Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep. 64 </p> 65 66 <p> 67 In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems. 68 It even took a while for SGI to support it across their product line. 69 Mesa filled a big hole during that time. 70 For a lot of people, Mesa was their first introduction to OpenGL. 71 I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually helped to promote 72 the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the project. 73 </p> 74 75 76 <p> 77 1995-1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and during 78 my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University 79 of Wisconsin in Madison. My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me do this because 80 Mesa is now being using for the <a href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html" target="_parent">Vis5D</a> project. 81 </p><p> 82 October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.1 specification. 83 </p> 84 85 <p> 86 March 1997: Mesa 2.2 is released. It supports the new 3dfx Voodoo graphics 87 card via the Glide library. It's the first really popular hardware OpenGL 88 implementation for Linux. 89 </p> 90 91 <p> 92 September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released. It's the first publicly-available 93 implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API. 94 </p> 95 96 <p> 97 March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting. I contribute to the 98 development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years. 99 </p> 100 101 <p> 102 September 1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc. Mesa is a key 103 component of 3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for XFree86. 104 Drivers for 3dfx, 3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon follow. 105 </p> 106 107 <p> 108 October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released. 109 It implements the OpenGL 1.3 specification. 110 </p> 111 112 113 <p> 114 November 2001: I cofounded Tungsten Graphics, Inc. with Keith Whitwell, 115 Jens Owen, David Dawes and Frank LaMonica. 116 Tungsten Graphics was acquired by VMware in December 2008. 117 </p> 118 119 <p> 120 November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released. 121 It implements the OpenGL 1.4 specification. 122 </p> 123 124 <p> 125 January 2003: Mesa 6.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.5 126 specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and 127 GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions. 128 </p> 129 130 <p> 131 June 2007: Mesa 7.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 2.1 specification 132 and OpenGL Shading Language. 133 </p> 134 135 136 <p> 137 Ongoing: Mesa is used as the core of many hardware OpenGL drivers for 138 the XFree86 and X.org X servers within the 139 <A href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/" target="_parent">DRI project</A>. 140 I continue to enhance Mesa with new extensions and features. 141 </p> 142 143 144 145 <H1>Major Versions</H1> 146 147 <p> 148 This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa. 149 Mesa's major version number has been incremented whenever a new version 150 of the OpenGL specification is implemented. 151 </p> 152 153 154 <H2>Version 7.x features</H2> 155 <p> 156 Version 7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 2.1 API. The main feature 157 of OpenGL 2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language. 158 </p> 159 160 161 <H2>Version 6.x features</H2> 162 <p> 163 Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following 164 extensions incorporated as standard features: 165 </p> 166 <ul> 167 <li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query 168 <li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object 169 <li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs 170 </ul> 171 <p> 172 Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5 173 for the sake of consistency. 174 The old tokens are still available. 175 </p> 176 <pre> 177 New Token Old Token 178 ------------------------------------------------------------ 179 GL_FOG_COORD_SRC GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE 180 GL_FOG_COORD GL_FOG_COORDINATE 181 GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE 182 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE 183 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE 184 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER 185 GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY 186 GL_SRC0_RGB GL_SOURCE0_RGB 187 GL_SRC1_RGB GL_SOURCE1_RGB 188 GL_SRC2_RGB GL_SOURCE2_RGB 189 GL_SRC0_ALPHA GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA 190 GL_SRC1_ALPHA GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA 191 GL_SRC2_ALPHA GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA 192 </pre> 193 <p> 194 See the 195 <a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html" target="_parent"> 196 OpenGL specification</a> for more details. 197 </p> 198 199 200 201 <H2>Version 5.x features</H2> 202 <p> 203 Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following 204 extensions incorporated as standard features: 205 </p> 206 <ul> 207 <li>GL_ARB_depth_texture 208 <li>GL_ARB_shadow 209 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar 210 <li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat 211 <li>GL_ARB_window_pos 212 <li>GL_EXT_blend_color 213 <li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate 214 <li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op 215 <li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax 216 <li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract 217 <li>GL_EXT_fog_coord 218 <li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays 219 <li>GL_EXT_point_parameters 220 <li>GL_EXT_secondary_color 221 <li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap 222 <li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter) 223 <li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap 224 </ul> 225 226 227 <H2>Version 4.x features</H2> 228 229 <p> 230 Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following 231 extensions incorporated as standard features: 232 </p> 233 234 <ul> 235 <li>GL_ARB_multisample 236 <li>GL_ARB_multitexture 237 <li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp 238 <li>GL_ARB_texture_compression 239 <li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map 240 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add 241 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine 242 <li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 243 <li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix 244 </ul> 245 246 <H2>Version 3.x features</H2> 247 248 <p> 249 Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following 250 features: 251 </p> 252 <ul> 253 <li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats 254 <li>New texture border clamp mode 255 <li>glDrawRangeElements() 256 <li>standard 3-D texturing 257 <li>advanced MIPMAP control 258 <li>separate specular color interpolation 259 </ul> 260 261 262 <H2>Version 2.x features</H2> 263 <p> 264 Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following 265 features. 266 </p> 267 <ul> 268 <li>Texture mapping: 269 <ul> 270 <li>glAreTexturesResident 271 <li>glBindTexture 272 <li>glCopyTexImage1D 273 <li>glCopyTexImage2D 274 <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D 275 <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D 276 <li>glDeleteTextures 277 <li>glGenTextures 278 <li>glIsTexture 279 <li>glPrioritizeTextures 280 <li>glTexSubImage1D 281 <li>glTexSubImage2D 282 </ul> 283 <li>Vertex Arrays: 284 <ul> 285 <li>glArrayElement 286 <li>glColorPointer 287 <li>glDrawElements 288 <li>glEdgeFlagPointer 289 <li>glIndexPointer 290 <li>glInterleavedArrays 291 <li>glNormalPointer 292 <li>glTexCoordPointer 293 <li>glVertexPointer 294 </ul> 295 <li>Client state management: 296 <ul> 297 <li>glDisableClientState 298 <li>glEnableClientState 299 <li>glPopClientAttrib 300 <li>glPushClientAttrib 301 </ul> 302 <li>Misc: 303 <ul> 304 <li>glGetPointer 305 <li>glIndexub 306 <li>glIndexubv 307 <li>glPolygonOffset 308 </ul> 309 </ul> 310 311 312 </body> 313 </html> 314
