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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.sf.net/" target="_parent">Direct Rendering Infrastructure</a> 26and <a href="http://x.org" target="_parent">X.org</a> to provide OpenGL 27support to users of X on Linux, FreeBSD and other operating systems. 28</p> 29 30 31 32<H1>Project History</H1> 33 34<p> 35The Mesa project was originally started by Brian Paul. 36Here's a short history of the project. 37</p> 38 39<p> 40August, 1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time. The project 41has no name at that point. I was simply interested in writing a simple 423D graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API. I was partially 43inspired by the <em>VOGL</em> library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL. 44I had been programming with IRIS GL since 1991. 45</p> 46 47<p> 48November 1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my OpenGL-like 49graphics library on the internet. SGI was generally receptive to the 50idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal department, I get permission 51to release it. 52</p> 53 54<p> 55February 1995: Mesa 1.0 is released on the internet. I expected that 56a few people would be interested in it, but not thousands. 57I was soon receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a 58daily basis. That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa. The 59name Mesa just popped into my head one day. SGI had asked me not to use 60the terms <em>"Open"</em> or <em>"GL"</em> in the project name and I didn't 61want to make up a new acronym. Later, I heard of the Mesa programming 62language and the Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep. 63</p> 64 65<p> 66In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems. 67It even took a while for SGI to support it across their product line. 68Mesa filled a big hole during that time. 69For a lot of people, Mesa was their first introduction to OpenGL. 70I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually helped to promote 71the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the project. 72</p> 73 74 75<p> 761995-1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and during 77my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University 78of Wisconsin in Madison. My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me do this because 79Mesa is now being using for the <a href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html" target="_parent">Vis5D</a> project. 80</p><p> 81October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.1 specification. 82</p> 83 84<p> 85March 1997: Mesa 2.2 is released. It supports the new 3dfx Voodoo graphics 86card via the Glide library. It's the first really popular hardware OpenGL 87implementation for Linux. 88</p> 89 90<p> 91September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released. It's the first publicly-available 92implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API. 93</p> 94 95<p> 96March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting. I contribute to the 97development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years. 98</p> 99 100<p> 101September 1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc. Mesa is a key 102component of 3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for XFree86. 103Drivers for 3dfx, 3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon follow. 104</p> 105 106<p> 107October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released. 108It implements the OpenGL 1.3 specification. 109</p> 110 111 112<p> 113November 2001: I cofound <a href="http://www.tungstengraphics.com" target="_parent"> 114Tungsten Graphics, Inc.</a> with Keith Whitwell, Jens Owen, David Dawes and 115Frank LaMonica. 116I continue to develop Mesa as part of my resposibilities with Tungsten 117Graphics and as a spare-time project. 118</p> 119 120<p> 121November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released. 122It implements the OpenGL 1.4 specification. 123</p> 124 125<p> 126January 2003: Mesa 6.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.5 127specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and 128GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions. 129</p> 130 131<p> 132May 2007: Mesa 7.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 2.1 specification 133and OpenGL Shading Language. 134</p> 135 136 137<p> 138Ongoing: Mesa is used as the core of many hardware OpenGL drivers for 139the XFree86 and X.org X servers within the 140<A href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/" target="_parent">DRI project</A>. 141I continue to enhance Mesa with new extensions and features. 142</p> 143 144 145 146<H1>Major Versions</H1> 147 148<p> 149This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa. 150Mesa's major version number has been incremented whenever a new version 151of the OpenGL specification is implemented. 152</p> 153 154 155<H2>Version 7.x features</H2> 156<p> 157Version 7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 2.1 API. The main feature 158of OpenGL 2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language. 159</p> 160 161 162<H2>Version 6.x features</H2> 163<p> 164Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following 165extensions incorporated as standard features: 166</p> 167<ul> 168<li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query 169<li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object 170<li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs 171</ul> 172<p> 173Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5 174for the sake of consistency. 175The old tokens are still available. 176</p> 177<pre> 178New Token Old Token 179------------------------------------------------------------ 180GL_FOG_COORD_SRC GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE 181GL_FOG_COORD GL_FOG_COORDINATE 182GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE 183GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE 184GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE 185GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER 186GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY 187GL_SRC0_RGB GL_SOURCE0_RGB 188GL_SRC1_RGB GL_SOURCE1_RGB 189GL_SRC2_RGB GL_SOURCE2_RGB 190GL_SRC0_ALPHA GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA 191GL_SRC1_ALPHA GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA 192GL_SRC2_ALPHA GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA 193</pre> 194<p> 195See the 196<a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html" target="_parent"> 197OpenGL specification</a> for more details. 198</p> 199 200 201 202<H2>Version 5.x features</H2> 203<p> 204Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following 205extensions incorporated as standard features: 206</p> 207<ul> 208<li>GL_ARB_depth_texture 209<li>GL_ARB_shadow 210<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar 211<li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat 212<li>GL_ARB_window_pos 213<li>GL_EXT_blend_color 214<li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate 215<li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op 216<li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax 217<li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract 218<li>GL_EXT_fog_coord 219<li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays 220<li>GL_EXT_point_parameters 221<li>GL_EXT_secondary_color 222<li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap 223<li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter) 224<li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap 225</ul> 226 227 228<H2>Version 4.x features</H2> 229 230<p> 231Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following 232extensions incorporated as standard features: 233</p> 234 235<ul> 236<li>GL_ARB_multisample 237<li>GL_ARB_multitexture 238<li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp 239<li>GL_ARB_texture_compression 240<li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map 241<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add 242<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine 243<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 244<li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix 245</ul> 246 247<H2>Version 3.x features</H2> 248 249<p> 250Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following 251features: 252</p> 253<ul> 254<li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats 255<li>New texture border clamp mode 256<li>glDrawRangeElements() 257<li>standard 3-D texturing 258<li>advanced MIPMAP control 259<li>separate specular color interpolation 260</ul> 261 262 263<H2>Version 2.x features</H2> 264<p> 265Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following 266features. 267</p> 268<ul> 269<li>Texture mapping: 270 <ul> 271 <li>glAreTexturesResident 272 <li>glBindTexture 273 <li>glCopyTexImage1D 274 <li>glCopyTexImage2D 275 <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D 276 <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D 277 <li>glDeleteTextures 278 <li>glGenTextures 279 <li>glIsTexture 280 <li>glPrioritizeTextures 281 <li>glTexSubImage1D 282 <li>glTexSubImage2D 283 </ul> 284<li>Vertex Arrays: 285 <ul> 286 <li>glArrayElement 287 <li>glColorPointer 288 <li>glDrawElements 289 <li>glEdgeFlagPointer 290 <li>glIndexPointer 291 <li>glInterleavedArrays 292 <li>glNormalPointer 293 <li>glTexCoordPointer 294 <li>glVertexPointer 295 </ul> 296<li>Client state management: 297 <ul> 298 <li>glDisableClientState 299 <li>glEnableClientState 300 <li>glPopClientAttrib 301 <li>glPushClientAttrib 302 </ul> 303<li>Misc: 304 <ul> 305 <li>glGetPointer 306 <li>glIndexub 307 <li>glIndexubv 308 <li>glPolygonOffset 309 </ul> 310</ul> 311 312 313</body> 314</html> 315