Khronos Group Announces Key Advances in OpenGL Ecosystem

The Khronos Group, a consortium of hardware and software companies, reported growing industry support for the OpenGL family of 3D standards for advancing the visual experience. OpenGL, OpenGL ESTM and WebGLTM, according to a press release, are the world’s most widely deployed APIs that provide portable access to graphics and compute abilities across multiple platforms.

In July, several GPU vendors, including ARM, Imagination Technologies, Intel, NIVIDIA and Vivante achieved full conformance with the latest version of OpenGL ES. Google also announced support for the platform in June by including it with the Android Expansion Pack (AEP). The AEP is a new set of extensions to OpenGL ES that brings additional desktop-class graphics functionality to Android.

Khronos also publicly released the OpenGL 4.5 specification, which brings  the latest functionality to 3D graphics API while maintaining backwards compatibility. New functions include:

• Direct State Access — object accessors enable state to be queried and modified without binding objects to contexts for increased application and middleware efficiency and flexibility.
• Flush Control — applications can control flushing of pending commands before context switching.
• Robustness — providing a secure platform for applications such as WebGL browsers, including preventing a GPU reset affecting other running applications.
• OpenGL 3.1 API and shader compatibility — to enable easy deployment and execution of the latest OpenGL ES applications on desktop systems.
• DX11 emulation features — for easier porting of applications between OpenGL and Direct3D.

Furthermore, Khronos has launched its next generation OpenGL Initiative. This project is focused on defining a future open standard for high-efficiency access to graphics and compute on modern GPUs.

For more information, visit Khronos Group.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.