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 cofounded Tungsten Graphics, Inc. with Keith Whitwell, 115Jens Owen, David Dawes and Frank LaMonica. 116Tungsten Graphics was acquired by VMware in December 2008. 117</p> 118 119<p> 120November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released. 121It implements the OpenGL 1.4 specification. 122</p> 123 124<p> 125January 2003: Mesa 6.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.5 126specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and 127GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions. 128</p> 129 130<p> 131June 2007: Mesa 7.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 2.1 specification 132and OpenGL Shading Language. 133</p> 134 135 136<p> 137Ongoing: Mesa is used as the core of many hardware OpenGL drivers for 138the XFree86 and 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. 149Mesa's major version number has been incremented whenever a new version 150of the OpenGL specification is implemented. 151</p> 152 153 154<H2>Version 7.x features</H2> 155<p> 156Version 7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 2.1 API. The main feature 157of OpenGL 2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language. 158</p> 159 160 161<H2>Version 6.x features</H2> 162<p> 163Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following 164extensions 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> 172Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5 173for the sake of consistency. 174The old tokens are still available. 175</p> 176<pre> 177New Token Old Token 178------------------------------------------------------------ 179GL_FOG_COORD_SRC GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE 180GL_FOG_COORD GL_FOG_COORDINATE 181GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE 182GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE 183GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE 184GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER 185GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY 186GL_SRC0_RGB GL_SOURCE0_RGB 187GL_SRC1_RGB GL_SOURCE1_RGB 188GL_SRC2_RGB GL_SOURCE2_RGB 189GL_SRC0_ALPHA GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA 190GL_SRC1_ALPHA GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA 191GL_SRC2_ALPHA GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA 192</pre> 193<p> 194See the 195<a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html" target="_parent"> 196OpenGL specification</a> for more details. 197</p> 198 199 200 201<H2>Version 5.x features</H2> 202<p> 203Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following 204extensions 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> 230Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following 231extensions 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> 249Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following 250features: 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> 264Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following 265features. 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