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OpenGL

awesome-opengl Awesome

A curated list of awesome OpenGL libraries, debuggers and resources.

Articles

OpenGL articles (non-tutorials)

Books

Popular books about OpenGL

  • A Trip Down the Graphics Pipeline by Jim Blinn - Popular book that contains wealth information about the graphics pipeline, and of the best sources to learn the core concepts of Computer Graphics.
  • Computer Graphics by John F. Hughes, et al. - Computer Graphics is indeed a must for anyone being involved in the design and implementation of Computer Graphics algorithms. However, this is not a OpenGL focused book, but contains valuable demonstrations of the technology.
  • Interactive Computer Graphics by Edward Angel and Dave Shreiner - It provides several examples using OpenGL and it covers several aspects at once, but if you are trying to learn OpenGL on your own you might not find this helpful.
  • OpenGL ES 3.0 Programming Guide by Dan Ginsburg, et al. - It presents all the necessary information to use the OpenGL ES 3.0 API in a clear manner.
  • OpenGL Insights by Patrick Cozzi, Christophe Riccio - Rich and comprehensive resource to learn techniques and tips, covering several advanced topics of OpenGL.
  • OpenGL Programming Guide by Dave Shreiner, et al. - It does a good job covering the basics and providing clear reference of the API.
  • OpenGL Shading Language by Randi J. Rost, et al. - Very clear and well written book about Shading Language. Also, it provides several explanations of writing shaders.
  • OpenGL SuperBible by Richard S. Wright, et al. - It covers the basic concepts of computer graphics and provides clear examples using OpenGL. Definitely, it is a must for beginners.
  • Real-Time Rendering by Tomas Akenine-Moller, Eric Haines and Naty Hoffman - It does a good job at explaining concepts for game engine, basis for game client programming as well as the necessary knowledge for understanding DirectX and OpenGL.

Debug

Debugging and profiling libraries

  • apitrace - Tools for tracing OpenGL, Direct3D, and other graphics APIs.
  • CodeXL - AMD's tool suite that includes debugger, profiler and frame/shader analysis.
  • GL-SL Debugger - Tool for debugging OpenGL programs.
  • GLIntercept - OpenGL function call interceptor for Windows.
  • Intel-GPA - Intel's OpenGL Graphics Performance Analyzer.
  • NVIDIA® Nsight™ - Development platform for graphics applications.
  • RenderDoc - RenderDoc is a stand-alone graphics debugging tool.
  • tracy - A real time remote telemetry frame profiler for games and other applications.
  • vogl - OpenGL capture and playback debugger developed by Valve.

GLSL Editors

Online GLSL Editors

Libraries

Useful libraries for OpenGL applications

  • assimp - Portable library to import 3D models in a uniform manner.
  • Bullet - It provides state of the art collision detection, soft body and rigid body dynamics.
  • fltk - C++ Toolkit to generate UI widgets portably. LGPLv2
  • freeGLUT - Mature library that allows to create/manage windows containing OpenGL contexts.
  • GLFW - Modern library for creating/interact windows with OpenGL contexts.
  • GLFM - Supplies an OpenGL ES context and input events for mobile devices and the web.
  • glm - Mathematics library for graphics software based on the GLSL specifications.
  • Magnum - It is a 2D/3D graphics engine for modern OpenGL.
  • MathFu - C++ math library developed primarily for games focused on simplicity and efficiency.
  • Newton - It is a cross-platform life-like physics.
  • OGLplus - Collection of libraries which implement an object-oriented facade over OpenGL.
  • SDL - Designed to provide low level access to multimedia and graphics hardware.
  • SFML - Simple interface to ease the development of games and multimedia applications.
  • SOIL - Tiny C library used primarily for uploading textures into OpenGL. (see SOIL2)
  • Pangolin - Lightweight portable rapid development library for managing OpenGL display / interaction and abstracting video input.
  • morphologica - OpenGL graphics engine for data visualization, especially of numerical simulations.
  • raylib - A simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogames programming.

Profile Loaders

Profile loaders for OpenGL

  • gl3w - Simple OpenGL core profile loader.
  • glad - Multi profile loader-generator based on the official specs.
  • glbindify - Command line tool to generate C bindings for OpenGL, wgl, and glX.
  • glbinding - Profile loader leveraging C++11 features to provide type safety.
  • GLEW - Mature cross-platform library to load OpenGL extensions.

References

OpenGL references

Talks

OpenGL related talks * Approaching Zero Driver Overhead in OpenGL - Slides - AMA Reddit by Cass Everitt, Tim Foley, John McDonald, Graham Sellers [1:15:54] * How Modern OpenGL Can Radically Reduce Driver Overhead by Cass Everitt, John McDonald [51:13] * Moving Your Games to OpenGL by Rich Geldreich, Dan Ginsburg, Peter Lohrmann, Jason Mitchell [54:45]

Videos

OpenGL video tutorials

  • Jamie King - Comprehensive tutorials about modern OpenGL and Qt.
  • MakingGamesWithBen - Video tutorials (step-by-step) about OpenGL and game development.
  • SIGGRAPH - Popular conference about computer graphics.
  • TheChernoProject - Introduction to OpenGL in C++
  • thebennybox - Videos tutorials about OpenGL and game development.
  • ThinMatrix - Video tutorials about OpenGL and game development using Java.
  • sentdex - Videos tutorials about OpenGL (immediate mode) using Python.
  • Sonar Systems - Learn about the new and modern OpenGL 3.0+.

Websites

OpenGL tutorial websites

Similar awesome lists * awesome - A curated list of awesome lists. * awesome-computer-vision - A curated list of awesome computer vision resources. * awesome-webgl - A curated list of awesome WebGL libraries, resources and much more. * awesome-vulkan - A curated list of awesome Vulkan projects and ecosystem. * gamedev - A awesome list about game development. * graphics-resources - A list of graphic programming resources.

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.