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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> 12Mesa is an open-source implementation of the 13<a href="http://www.opengl.org/" target="_parent">OpenGL</a> specification - 14a system for rendering interactive 3D graphics. 15</p> 16 17<p> 18A variety of device drivers allows Mesa to be used in many different 19environments ranging from software emulation to complete hardware acceleration 20for modern GPUs. 21</p> 22 23<p> 24Mesa ties into several other open-source projects: the 25<a href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/" target="_parent">Direct Rendering 26Infrastructure</a> and <a href="http://x.org" target="_parent">X.org</a> to 27provide OpenGL support to users of X on Linux, FreeBSD and other operating 28systems. 29</p> 30 31 32 33<H1>Project History</H1> 34 35<p> 36The Mesa project was originally started by Brian Paul. 37Here's a short history of the project. 38</p> 39 40<p> 41August, 1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time. The project 42has no name at that point. I was simply interested in writing a simple 433D graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API. I was partially 44inspired by the <em>VOGL</em> library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL. 45I had been programming with IRIS GL since 1991. 46</p> 47 48<p> 49November 1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my OpenGL-like 50graphics library on the internet. SGI was generally receptive to the 51idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal department, I get permission 52to release it. 53</p> 54 55<p> 56February 1995: Mesa 1.0 is released on the internet. I expected that 57a few people would be interested in it, but not thousands. 58I was soon receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a 59daily basis. That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa. The 60name Mesa just popped into my head one day. SGI had asked me not to use 61the terms <em>"Open"</em> or <em>"GL"</em> in the project name and I didn't 62want to make up a new acronym. Later, I heard of the Mesa programming 63language and the Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep. 64</p> 65 66<p> 67In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems. 68It even took a while for SGI to support it across their product line. 69Mesa filled a big hole during that time. 70For a lot of people, Mesa was their first introduction to OpenGL. 71I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually helped to promote 72the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the project. 73</p> 74 75 76<p> 771995-1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and during 78my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University 79of Wisconsin in Madison. My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me do this because 80Mesa is now being using for the <a href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html" target="_parent">Vis5D</a> project. 81</p><p> 82October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.1 specification. 83</p> 84 85<p> 86March 1997: Mesa 2.2 is released. It supports the new 3dfx Voodoo graphics 87card via the Glide library. It's the first really popular hardware OpenGL 88implementation for Linux. 89</p> 90 91<p> 92September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released. It's the first publicly-available 93implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API. 94</p> 95 96<p> 97March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting. I contribute to the 98development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years. 99</p> 100 101<p> 102September 1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc. Mesa is a key 103component of 3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for XFree86. 104Drivers for 3dfx, 3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon follow. 105</p> 106 107<p> 108October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released. 109It implements the OpenGL 1.3 specification. 110</p> 111 112 113<p> 114November 2001: I cofound <a href="http://www.tungstengraphics.com" target="_parent"> 115Tungsten Graphics, Inc.</a> with Keith Whitwell, Jens Owen, David Dawes and 116Frank LaMonica. 117I continue to develop Mesa as part of my resposibilities with Tungsten 118Graphics and as a spare-time project. 119</p> 120 121<p> 122November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released. 123It implements the OpenGL 1.4 specification. 124</p> 125 126<p> 127January 2003: Mesa 6.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.5 128specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and 129GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions. 130</p> 131 132<p> 133June 2007: Mesa 7.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 2.1 specification 134and OpenGL Shading Language. 135</p> 136 137 138<p> 139Ongoing: Mesa is used as the core of many hardware OpenGL drivers for 140the XFree86 and X.org X servers within the 141<A href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/" target="_parent">DRI project</A>. 142I continue to enhance Mesa with new extensions and features. 143</p> 144 145 146 147<H1>Major Versions</H1> 148 149<p> 150This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa. 151Mesa's major version number has been incremented whenever a new version 152of the OpenGL specification is implemented. 153</p> 154 155 156<H2>Version 7.x features</H2> 157<p> 158Version 7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 2.1 API. The main feature 159of OpenGL 2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language. 160</p> 161 162 163<H2>Version 6.x features</H2> 164<p> 165Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following 166extensions incorporated as standard features: 167</p> 168<ul> 169<li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query 170<li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object 171<li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs 172</ul> 173<p> 174Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5 175for the sake of consistency. 176The old tokens are still available. 177</p> 178<pre> 179New Token Old Token 180------------------------------------------------------------ 181GL_FOG_COORD_SRC GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE 182GL_FOG_COORD GL_FOG_COORDINATE 183GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE 184GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE 185GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE 186GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER 187GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY 188GL_SRC0_RGB GL_SOURCE0_RGB 189GL_SRC1_RGB GL_SOURCE1_RGB 190GL_SRC2_RGB GL_SOURCE2_RGB 191GL_SRC0_ALPHA GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA 192GL_SRC1_ALPHA GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA 193GL_SRC2_ALPHA GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA 194</pre> 195<p> 196See the 197<a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html" target="_parent"> 198OpenGL specification</a> for more details. 199</p> 200 201 202 203<H2>Version 5.x features</H2> 204<p> 205Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following 206extensions incorporated as standard features: 207</p> 208<ul> 209<li>GL_ARB_depth_texture 210<li>GL_ARB_shadow 211<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar 212<li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat 213<li>GL_ARB_window_pos 214<li>GL_EXT_blend_color 215<li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate 216<li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op 217<li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax 218<li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract 219<li>GL_EXT_fog_coord 220<li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays 221<li>GL_EXT_point_parameters 222<li>GL_EXT_secondary_color 223<li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap 224<li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter) 225<li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap 226</ul> 227 228 229<H2>Version 4.x features</H2> 230 231<p> 232Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following 233extensions incorporated as standard features: 234</p> 235 236<ul> 237<li>GL_ARB_multisample 238<li>GL_ARB_multitexture 239<li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp 240<li>GL_ARB_texture_compression 241<li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map 242<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add 243<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine 244<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 245<li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix 246</ul> 247 248<H2>Version 3.x features</H2> 249 250<p> 251Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following 252features: 253</p> 254<ul> 255<li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats 256<li>New texture border clamp mode 257<li>glDrawRangeElements() 258<li>standard 3-D texturing 259<li>advanced MIPMAP control 260<li>separate specular color interpolation 261</ul> 262 263 264<H2>Version 2.x features</H2> 265<p> 266Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following 267features. 268</p> 269<ul> 270<li>Texture mapping: 271 <ul> 272 <li>glAreTexturesResident 273 <li>glBindTexture 274 <li>glCopyTexImage1D 275 <li>glCopyTexImage2D 276 <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D 277 <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D 278 <li>glDeleteTextures 279 <li>glGenTextures 280 <li>glIsTexture 281 <li>glPrioritizeTextures 282 <li>glTexSubImage1D 283 <li>glTexSubImage2D 284 </ul> 285<li>Vertex Arrays: 286 <ul> 287 <li>glArrayElement 288 <li>glColorPointer 289 <li>glDrawElements 290 <li>glEdgeFlagPointer 291 <li>glIndexPointer 292 <li>glInterleavedArrays 293 <li>glNormalPointer 294 <li>glTexCoordPointer 295 <li>glVertexPointer 296 </ul> 297<li>Client state management: 298 <ul> 299 <li>glDisableClientState 300 <li>glEnableClientState 301 <li>glPopClientAttrib 302 <li>glPushClientAttrib 303 </ul> 304<li>Misc: 305 <ul> 306 <li>glGetPointer 307 <li>glIndexub 308 <li>glIndexubv 309 <li>glPolygonOffset 310 </ul> 311</ul> 312 313 314</body> 315</html> 316