OpenGL Mathematics (GLM) is a header only C mathematics library for graphics software based on the OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL) specifications. GLM provides classes and functions designed and implemented with the same naming conventions and functionalities than GLSL so that anyone who knows GLSL, can use GLM as well in C. OpenGL is a cross-platform, industry standard graphics programming API for 3D graphics. OpenGL ES is the mobile subset of OpenGL. It's supported on all major mobile platforms, and is also the base for WebGL. Vulkan is the next-generation graphics programming API from The Khronos® Group. I'd like to introduce you to the model, view and renderer concept used in my OpenGL wrapper library. One of the core concepts in glpp is that objects only hold state on the gpu or cpu side. For the vertex data there is a model type, that contains the state on the cpu side and a view type, that does so for the gpu side.
Originally developed by Silicon Graphics in the early '90s, OpenGL® has become the most widely-used open graphics standard in the world. NVIDIA supports OpenGL and a complete set of OpenGL extensions, designed to give you maximum performance on our GPUs. NVIDIA continues to support OpenGL as well through technical papers and our large set of examples on our NVIDIA Graphics SDK.
NVIDIA OpenGL Samples
External
- GTC 2016: GPU-Driven Rendering
- GTC 2015: GPU-Driven Large Scene Rendering in OpenGL
- GTC 2015: Slicing the Workload: Multi-GPU Rendering Approaches
- Mobile Summit 2014: NVIDIA Path Rendering: Accelerating Vector Graphics for the Mobile Web
- SIGGRAPH Asia 2014: OpenGL NVIDIA 'Command-List': 'Approaching Zero Driver Overhead'
- SIGGRAPH 2014: OpenGL Scene Rendering Techniques (Best of GTC 2014)
- SIGGRAPH 2014: OpenGL Update for NVIDIA GPUs
- GTC 2014: Order Independent Transparency in OpenGL
- GTC 2014: Multi-GPU Rendering
- GTC 2013: Advanced Scenegraph Rendering Pipeline
Loading images from files is outside the scope of the OpenGL specification. It is handled by user-made code or one of the image handling libraries below.
Single format libraries
- lodepng: Very small library for loading PNG files without any dependencies.
- libpng: The official library for loading PNG files. It is very widely used. Many other libraries use this to handle PNG.
- libspng: An alternative to libpng with a simple C API.
- libjpg: A library for loading JPEG (or JPG) files. As with libpng, other libraries use libjpg to handle JPEG.
- libktx: Library for the KTX file format. The KTX format is closely related to OpenGL, but not used by most tools. LibKTL also has functions to take a loaded KTX image and convert it into an OpenGL texture.
Multi format libraries
OpenGL Image
Last Update: Jan 11, 2014
GLI (OpenGL Image) is a small cross-platform C++ image library able to load DDS textures (DDS9 and DDS10), compressed or uncompressed.
It is licensed under the MIT license.
Unofficial OpenGL SDK
Last Update: August 10, 2012
Unofficial OpenGL SDK has an image loading component called GL Image. This is a C++ library for loading images. It currently supports DDS9 textures (and compression), PNG, JPEG, TGA, BMP, and GIF formats.
Opengl Library For C++
It has functions to load images into OpenGL textures, either user-created ones or ones created by the system itself. It supports creating immutable storage for textures as well as those with mutable storage. It even supports direct state access, to minimize state changes when creating them.
It is licensed under the MIT license.
SAIL
Last Update: November 1, 2020
SAIL (Squirrel Abstract Image Library) is a fast C/C++ image decoding library providing simple yet powerful APIs, from one-liners to complex use cases with custom I/O sources.
It does not have functions to load images directly into OpenGL textures.
Supported image formats: APNG, PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF. Work to add more image formats is ongoing.
Supported platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux.
It is released under the MIT license.
Opengl Library Download
DevIL
Last Update: January 1, 2017
DevIL stands for Developers Image Library (it once was called 'OpenIL', but that was trademarked, so they had to change it). It supports many image formats for reading and writing, it supports several compilers and OS (Win, Linux, Mac OSX). The library has a OpenGL-like syntax.
It does have functions to load images directly (more or less) into OpenGL textures, though these are part of 'ilut' and not 'il' proper.
DevIL uses the LGPL license, version 2.1.
FreeImage
Last Update: March 23, 2014
FreeImage is an cross-platform image-loading library, with very wide support for image formats (including some HDR formats like OpenEXR).
It does not have functions to load images directly into OpenGL textures.
It is released under multiple licenses, GPL 2 and 3, as well as their own FreeImage Public License.
GLraw
Last Update: March 28, 2014
GLraw is an utility that converts Qt-supported images into various OpenGL-compatible raw formats. glraw reduces the process of loading textures at run-time to a minimum: A file-content dump into GPU memory.
Image to OpenGL texture conversion can be done either by glraw's command line interface, e.g., within an existing tool-chain, or at run-time with glraw linked as asset library (requires linking Qt). For loading image files, just source copy the minimal Raw-File reader or integrate the dependency free, C++ loader library.
It is licensed under the MIT license.
Opengl Library For C++
It has functions to load images into OpenGL textures, either user-created ones or ones created by the system itself. It supports creating immutable storage for textures as well as those with mutable storage. It even supports direct state access, to minimize state changes when creating them.
It is licensed under the MIT license.
SAIL
Last Update: November 1, 2020
SAIL (Squirrel Abstract Image Library) is a fast C/C++ image decoding library providing simple yet powerful APIs, from one-liners to complex use cases with custom I/O sources.
It does not have functions to load images directly into OpenGL textures.
Supported image formats: APNG, PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF. Work to add more image formats is ongoing.
Supported platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux.
It is released under the MIT license.
Opengl Library Download
DevIL
Last Update: January 1, 2017
DevIL stands for Developers Image Library (it once was called 'OpenIL', but that was trademarked, so they had to change it). It supports many image formats for reading and writing, it supports several compilers and OS (Win, Linux, Mac OSX). The library has a OpenGL-like syntax.
It does have functions to load images directly (more or less) into OpenGL textures, though these are part of 'ilut' and not 'il' proper.
DevIL uses the LGPL license, version 2.1.
FreeImage
Last Update: March 23, 2014
FreeImage is an cross-platform image-loading library, with very wide support for image formats (including some HDR formats like OpenEXR).
It does not have functions to load images directly into OpenGL textures.
It is released under multiple licenses, GPL 2 and 3, as well as their own FreeImage Public License.
GLraw
Last Update: March 28, 2014
GLraw is an utility that converts Qt-supported images into various OpenGL-compatible raw formats. glraw reduces the process of loading textures at run-time to a minimum: A file-content dump into GPU memory.
Image to OpenGL texture conversion can be done either by glraw's command line interface, e.g., within an existing tool-chain, or at run-time with glraw linked as asset library (requires linking Qt). For loading image files, just source copy the minimal Raw-File reader or integrate the dependency free, C++ loader library.
It is licensed under the MIT license.
GLAUX
Opengl Library For C++
DO NOT USE THIS! This is a very old library that should not be used anymore. Most people who encounter GLAUX are people who see the NeHe tutorials which haven't been updated in years. NeHe uses auxDIBImageLoad() in order to read BMP files. GLAUX is no longer available.
