The OpenGL ES development team is accepting applications from qualified developers who wish to preview the upcoming OpenGL ES 1.2 and the OpenGL ES 2.0 Draft Specification. Khronos has adopted a
dual-track roadmap for OpenGL ES as new-generation programmable graphics engines are being prepared to ship into embedded devices from games consoles to cell-phones. OpenGL ES 1.X specifications will continue to be evolved to support enable new generations of fixed function 3D accelerators while OpenGL ES 2.0 is the first embedded 3D API with full shading language programmability through the OpenGL ES Shading Language - a close derivative of the desktop OpenGL Shading Language. OpenGL ES 2.X specifications will be developed over time to expose the capabilities of evolving programmable hardware.
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The January issue of Computer Graphics World talks about the growing market for 3D cell phone gaming and how 3D will take off simply because it makes visuals look better. Referring to the OpenGL ES accelerated
Swerve 3D software, Superscape’s Beardow says “Games can have multiple cameras of different types and multiple light sources. Geometry and scene objects are only limited by available memory.” Combine this with the 3G networks (the cell phone equivalent of broadband) from carriers like Virgin and Vodafone, and OpenGL ES 3D technology will enable better-looking games with enhanced elements of play.

At 3GSM Bitboys demonstrated hardware-accelerated rendering of SVG vector graphics using their
G40 processor and a pre-release of the OpenVG 1.0 API. The demo showed SVG/OpenVG rendering with full anti-aliasing at 100 frames per second at QVGA resolution.

The PowerVR SDKs for PowerVR MBX development under OpenGL ES are available for download. The PC Emulation SDK is intended for developers who want to target OMAP and SH series processors but can write their 3D code using OpenGL ES on PCs with the PC Emulation SDK, which will allow content to port directly onto their target platforms. The PocketPC SDK (with support for the Dell Axim X50v) allows for immediate development and testing on supported PocketPC systems. The SDKs provide a set of documentation, source code example and tools that allows developers to create applications using the OpenGL ES API.

Philips will embed Hybrid’s 3D graphics technology into their fast embedded wireless J-Ware Java product for mobile devices. As a pure software solution, the J-Ware-Hybrid solution maximizes the capabilities of the underlying device without requiring any additional hardware. It also supports 3D accelerated hardware for extreme graphics performance. The technology is built on Hybrid’s implementations of M3G (JSR 184) and OpenGL ES embedded graphics standards.

This session on Wed March 9, 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm, will cover the features, technologies and performance you can expect from consumer handheld devices in 2005 and beyond. Targeted at PC and console developers eyeing the emerging handheld market, advanced topics include NVIDIA’s OpenGL ES multitexturing extension, performance tuning for fixed-point processing, and programming techniques for cross-platform development. Takeaway: Attendees will learn about the latest GoForce WMPs and gain a broad understanding of the burgeoning consumer handheld device landscape.

The newly introduced Mali 110 and Mali55 integrate 2D, 3D, 16X Full Scene Anti-Aliasing and video within a single core. The MaliGP (geometry processor) can be used as an additional processor to deliver integer, floating-point and 3D graphics in a high performance media processor hardware IP core. It supports all functionality specified in the OpenGL ES standard. Falanx provides a complete out of the box software stack that is pre-verified to support OpenGL ES 1.0, together with a performance analysis tool, for even quicker time to market and improved decision qualities for SoC integrators.

The OpenGL Utility Toolkit (
GLUT), is a window system independent toolkit for writing OpenGL programs.
GLUT|ES is a port of the OpenSource
FreeGLUT implementation for WinCE and Win32 systems based on OpenGL ES. Most of GLUT API v.3 functionnalities are present: window creation, callbacks, menus, timers etc. Only functions that cannot exist with OpenGL ES or are not pertinent have not been ported (like overlays, joysticks on PocketPC, etc.)