Documentation & Articles

HyperText Articles

OpenGL & X: An Introduction by Mark J. Kilgard.

originally in The X Journal, November-December, 1993, page 36-51.

• html (HyperText) format
• PostScript format

Using OpenGL with Xlib by Mark J. Kilgard.

originally in The X Journal, January-February, 1994, page 46-65.

• html format
• PostScript format

Using OpenGL with Motif by Mark J. Kilgard.

originally in The X Journal, July-August, 1994.

• html format
• PostScript format

The OpenGL Graphics System by Mark Segal and Kurt Akeley

This paper is a broad introduction to the features of OpenGL.

• html format
• The Design of the OpenGL Graphics System by Mark Segal and Kurt Akeley
  This paper describes the design considerations that shaped OpenGL, with some comparisons to other graphics APIs. There is some overlap with the previous paper.

  • html format

Books

Addison-Wesley publishes a two-volume set (The OpenGL Technical Library), consisting of the OpenGL Programming Guide (red book) and the OpenGL Reference Manual (blue book). The Programming Guide is the book which systematically describes how to write programs with the OpenGL API. The Reference Manual is mostly the set of manual pages, detailing each routine in the OpenGL library, as well as the OpenGL Utility Library and the OpenGL extension to the X Window System (GLX).

• Neider, Jackie, Tom Davis, and Mason Woo, OpenGL Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL, Release 1, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1993 (ISBN 0-201-63274-8).
• OpenGL Architecture Review Board, OpenGL Reference Manual: The Official Reference Document for OpenGL, Release 1, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1992 (ISBN 0-201-63276-4).

OpenGL Specification and Man Pages

PostScript versions of the OpenGL specifications for the OpenGL API, its Utility Library (GLU), the X server extension API (GLX), and the man pages (in standard man page format) for all those libraries are available via anonymous, public ftp, from the directory sgigate.sgi.com:~ftp/pub/opengl/doc.

Some of the files in this directory have been tar'd and compressed. Mosaic will uncompress the files, but you still have to untar them (tar xf file)

Please read the copyright and trademark rules written in the OpenGL specification.

Articles

The following is a bibliography of articles written about OpenGL:

• Davis, Tom. "Moving to OpenGL," IRIS Universe, Number 25, Summer, 1993.
• Glazier, Bill. "The 'Best Principle': Why OpenGL is emerging as the 3D graphics standard," Computer Graphics World, April, 1992.
• "Industry group pushing 3-D graphics standard," Computer Design, July, 1994, p. 50, 52.
• Karlton, Phil. "Integrating the GL into the X environment: a high performance rendering extension working with and not against X," The X Resource: Proceeding of the 6th Annual X Technical Conference, O'Reilly Associates, Issue 1, Winter, 1992.
• Kilgard, Mark J. "OpenGL & X: An Introduction," The X Journal. November-December, 1993, page 36-51.
• Kilgard, Mark J. "Using OpenGL with Xlib," The X Journal. January-February, 1994, page 46-65.
• Kilgard, Mark J. "Using OpenGL with Motif," The X Journal. July-August, 1994.
• "OpenGL Programs a New Horizon for Sun," SunWorld, January, 1994, page 15-17.
• Prosise, Jeff. "Advanced 3-D Graphics for Windows NT 3.5: Introducing the OpenGL Interface: Part I," Microsoft Systems Journal, October, 1994, Vol. 9, No, 10, page 15-29.