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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 a 3-D graphics library with an API which is very similar to 13that of <a href="http://www.opengl.org/" target="_parent">OpenGL</a>.* 14To the extent that Mesa utilizes the OpenGL command syntax or state 15machine, it is being used with authorization from <a 16href="http://www.sgi.com/" target="_parent">Silicon Graphics, 17Inc.</a>(SGI). However, the author does not possess an OpenGL license 18from SGI, and makes no claim that Mesa is in any way a compatible 19replacement for OpenGL or associated with SGI. Those who want a 20licensed implementation of OpenGL should contact a licensed 21vendor. 22</p> 23 24<p> 25Please do not refer to the library as <em>MesaGL</em> (for legal 26reasons). It's just <em>Mesa</em> or <em>The Mesa 3-D graphics 27library</em>. <br> 28</p> 29 30<p> 31* OpenGL is a trademark of <a href="http://www.sgi.com/" 32target="_parent">Silicon Graphics Incorporated</a>. 33</p> 34 35 36<H1>Project History</H1> 37 38<p> 39The Mesa project was founded by me, Brian Paul. Here's a short history 40of the project. 41</p> 42 43<p> 44August, 1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time. The project 45has no name at that point. I was simply interested in writing a simple 463D graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API. I was partially 47inspired by the <em>VOGL</em> library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL. 48I had been programming with IRIS GL since 1991. 49</p> 50 51<p> 52November 1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my OpenGL-like 53graphics library on the internet. SGI was generally receptive to the 54idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal department, I get permission 55to release it. 56</p> 57 58<p> 59February 1995: Mesa 1.0 is released on the internet. I expected that 60a few people would be interested in it, but not thousands. 61I was soon receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a 62daily basis. That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa. The 63name Mesa just popped into my head one day. SGI had asked me not to use 64the terms <em>"Open"</em> or <em>"GL"</em> in the project name and I didn't 65want to make up a new acronym. Later, I heard of the Mesa programming 66language and the Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep. 67</p> 68 69<p> 70In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems. 71It even took a while for SGI to support it across their product line. 72Mesa filled a big hole during that time. 73For a lot of people, Mesa was their first introduction to OpenGL. 74I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually helped to promote 75the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the project. 76</p> 77 78 79<p> 801995-1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and during 81my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University 82of Wisconsin in Madison. My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me do this because 83Mesa is now being using for the <a href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html" target="_parent">Vis5D</a> project. 84</p><p> 85October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.1 specification. 86</p> 87 88<p> 89March 1997: Mesa 2.2 is released. It supports the new 3dfx Voodoo graphics 90card via the Glide library. It's the first really popular hardware OpenGL 91implementation for Linux. 92</p> 93 94<p> 95September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released. It's the first publicly-available 96implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API. 97</p> 98 99<p> 100March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting. I contribute to the 101development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years. 102</p> 103 104<p> 105September 1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc. Mesa is a key 106component of 3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for XFree86. 107Drivers for 3dfx, 3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon follow. 108</p> 109 110<p> 111October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released. 112It implements the OpenGL 1.3 specification. 113</p> 114 115 116<p> 117November 2001: I cofound <a href="http://www.tungstengraphics.com" target="_parent"> 118Tungsten Graphics, Inc.</a> with Keith Whitwell, Jens Owen, David Dawes and 119Frank LaMonica. 120I continue to develop Mesa as part of my resposibilities with Tungsten 121Graphics and as a spare-time project. 122</p> 123 124<p> 125November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released. 126It implements the OpenGL 1.4 specification. 127</p> 128 129<p> 130January 2003: Mesa 6.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.5 131specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and 132GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions. 133</p> 134 135 136<p> 137Ongoing: Mesa is used as the core of many hardware OpenGL drivers for 138the XFree86 X.org X servers within the 139<A href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/" target="_parent">DRI project</A>. 140I continue to enhance Mesa with new extensions and features. 141</p> 142 143 144 145<H1>Major Versions</H1> 146 147<p> 148This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa. Note that Mesa's major 149version number tracks OpenGL's minor version number (+1). 150Work is underway to implement the OpenGL 2.0 specification. 151</p> 152 153 154<H2>Version 6.x features</H2> 155<p> 156Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following 157extensions incorporated as standard features: 158</p> 159<ul> 160<li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query 161<li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object 162<li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs 163</ul> 164<p> 165Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5 166for the sake of consistency. 167The old tokens are still available. 168</p> 169<pre> 170New Token Old Token 171------------------------------------------------------------ 172GL_FOG_COORD_SRC GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE 173GL_FOG_COORD GL_FOG_COORDINATE 174GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE 175GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE 176GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE 177GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER 178GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY 179GL_SRC0_RGB GL_SOURCE0_RGB 180GL_SRC1_RGB GL_SOURCE1_RGB 181GL_SRC2_RGB GL_SOURCE2_RGB 182GL_SRC0_ALPHA GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA 183GL_SRC1_ALPHA GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA 184GL_SRC2_ALPHA GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA 185</pre> 186<p> 187See the 188<a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html" target="_parent"> 189OpenGL specification</a> for more details. 190</p> 191 192 193 194<H2>Version 5.x features</H2> 195<p> 196Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following 197extensions incorporated as standard features: 198</p> 199<ul> 200<li>GL_ARB_depth_texture 201<li>GL_ARB_shadow 202<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar 203<li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat 204<li>GL_ARB_window_pos 205<li>GL_EXT_blend_color 206<li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate 207<li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op 208<li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax 209<li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract 210<li>GL_EXT_fog_coord 211<li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays 212<li>GL_EXT_point_parameters 213<li>GL_EXT_secondary_color 214<li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap 215<li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter) 216<li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap 217</ul> 218 219 220<H2>Version 4.x features</H2> 221 222<p> 223Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following 224extensions incorporated as standard features: 225</p> 226 227<ul> 228<li>GL_ARB_multisample 229<li>GL_ARB_multitexture 230<li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp 231<li>GL_ARB_texture_compression 232<li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map 233<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add 234<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine 235<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 236<li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix 237</ul> 238 239<H2>Version 3.x features</H2> 240 241<p> 242Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following 243features: 244</p> 245<ul> 246<li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats 247<li>New texture border clamp mode 248<li>glDrawRangeElements() 249<li>standard 3-D texturing 250<li>advanced MIPMAP control 251<li>separate specular color interpolation 252</ul> 253 254 255<H2>Version 2.x features</H2> 256<p> 257Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following 258features. 259</p> 260<ul> 261<li>Texture mapping: 262 <ul> 263 <li>glAreTexturesResident 264 <li>glBindTexture 265 <li>glCopyTexImage1D 266 <li>glCopyTexImage2D 267 <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D 268 <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D 269 <li>glDeleteTextures 270 <li>glGenTextures 271 <li>glIsTexture 272 <li>glPrioritizeTextures 273 <li>glTexSubImage1D 274 <li>glTexSubImage2D 275 </ul> 276<li>Vertex Arrays: 277 <ul> 278 <li>glArrayElement 279 <li>glColorPointer 280 <li>glDrawElements 281 <li>glEdgeFlagPointer 282 <li>glIndexPointer 283 <li>glInterleavedArrays 284 <li>glNormalPointer 285 <li>glTexCoordPointer 286 <li>glVertexPointer 287 </ul> 288<li>Client state management: 289 <ul> 290 <li>glDisableClientState 291 <li>glEnableClientState 292 <li>glPopClientAttrib 293 <li>glPushClientAttrib 294 </ul> 295<li>Misc: 296 <ul> 297 <li>glGetPointer 298 <li>glIndexub 299 <li>glIndexubv 300 <li>glPolygonOffset 301 </ul> 302</ul> 303 304 305</body> 306</html> 307