The beta release of the OpenGL ES 2.0 SDK for PowerVR SGX, provides one of the first OpenGL ES 2.0 PC emulation-based development environments. This SDK features training course content, demos for advanced shader techniques and the first PowerVR SGX tools, including a geometry exporter, texture converter, universal shader compiler, and advanced shader development environment. It also features a PC emulation environment significantly upgraded from previous MBX SDK releases, providing, among other things, full shader support. If you want to get access to this latest SDK before general release, please contact powervrinsider [at] imgtec.com.

This article from SymbianOne is a interview with Xen Games and their transition from their own engine to OpenGL ES on Sony Ericsson’s UIQ 3 phones. ” As we concentrate on high quality games, which can take a year to write, we don’t see any point in creating a game that is not OpenGL ES 3D enabled. It makes no sense to write a game for a device with a 3D chip without using its features. To use the chip you need to use the standard APIs and OpenGL ES is the most widespread standard on phones… The main advantage with OpenGL ES is its cross platform support.”

CodeSynthesis XSD is an open-source, cross-platform XML Schema to C++ data binding compiler. Provided with an XML instance specification (XML Schema), it generates C++ classes that represent the given vocabulary as well as parsing and serialization code. This lets you access the data stored in XML using types and functions that semantically correspond to your application domain rather than dealing with intricacies of reading and writing XML. XSD supports a wide range of industry standards and schemas including COLLADA in the new XSD v2.3.1 (i.e. translates COLLADA 1.3.1, 1.4.0, and 1.4.1 to C++). It is available on GNU/Linux, Windows, Solaris, Mac OS X, HP-UX, and AIX and supports many compilers. Dual-licensed under the GPL and a commercial license.

This open source work-alike of OpenVG is built on top of the QtOpenGL for Qt4.3. It uses the OpenGL API for hardware acceleration.

This article written by Chris Hinsley from the Tao Group clearly explains the problems that OpenKODE is designed to address, how it creates a consistent platform for development and thus a viable market for developers, how it can also accelerate Java-based applications, how it brings together all of the Khronos APIs (3D, 2D, video, audio and user input and networking) and how it defines a standard secure distribution format.

Updated release notes in Japanese for COLLADA 1.4.1 are now available (Release Notes Revision A). These notes offer corrections and additions to the earlier release notes, and are all indicated by colored shading.

This new VGMark07 benchmark will provide vector graphics performance data for handset manufacturers, ODMs, semiconductor companies and network operators. It is the first product that will enable the handheld industry and media to make objective and accurate cross platform performance comparisons of OpenVG 1.0 API enabled hardware and software solutions. Application tests such as user interface navigation and map based navigation provide performance comparisons of a broad array of OpenVG features. VGMark07 is targeted for devices that are fully compliant with the OpenVG 1.0 API specification and which pass all Open VG conformance tests.

Sample silicon from Imagination Technologies of its PowerVR SGX graphics core will be shown running OpenGL 2.0 under Windows XP and OpenGL ES 2.0 under Linux at CES 2007. Demonstrations will include a shader browser showing a variety of advanced shader effects and Quake III running on Windows XP. Other demos created by Imagination’s developer technology group show advanced features including: anisotropic lighting, bumpmapping, cell shading, Gooch shading, Fresnel reflections, iridescence, lightmaps, perturbed UVs, recursive render to texture, stencil buffer, procedural texturing (wood, marble, bricks), procedural deformations and morphing.

Episode #5 in the Khronos Mobile Media Developer podcast series, produced by NVIDIA, discusses performance coding techniques for graphics processing on handheld devices that maximize 3D graphics performance for C++ applications coded using OpenGL ES 1.1. It’s fast-paced, and visually compelling, presenting tips on matrix management, vertex lighting, visibility determination, and how to generate convincing volumetric explosions. It brings all the tips together by showing a 64-spaceship battle scene with dynamic lighting and explosions running at 30 fps on a mobile phone.


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At CES, Xilinx demonstrated the logi3D, the automotive industry’s first 3D hardware accelerator IP core targeted specifically for its automotive line of XA FPGAs. The logi3D IP core for the OpenGL ES API provides Tier One automotive electronic suppliers with a parameterizable and scalable solution, allowing flexibility for customized graphics applications based on specific OEM customer requirements. The single screen solution is comprised of a 3D hardware acceleration IP core using OpenGL ES, a Xilinx MicroBlaze processor and display controller, all running on a Xilinx automotive qualified Spartan-3 XA device. Overlay, texturing, shading, and many other features of the core can be customized quickly and efficiently.

JBenchmark 239 is a 3D performance benchmark suite for Java Binding for the OpenGL ES API (JSR 239) compatible devices. The new benchmark not only measures Java based OpenGL ES 1.0 and 1.1 application performance, but also lets direct comparison to native OpenGL ES and Java Mobile 3D Graphics (JSR 184) results. As the high performance mobile engines all use OpenGL ES for underlying rendering, these measurements will also help finding bottlenecks in current Java implementations.

DoomGLES is an OpenGL ES port of Doom for Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC with an intel 2700g chip (Dell Axim x50v & x51v). It supports bilinear filtering with mipmapping, coronas on light soruces, multitextured lights and MD2 format. The latest v0.4 improves MD2 rendering, and adds WiFi intrastructure for networking.