About OpenGL
Once upon a time in the early 1980s, I was looking at a computer at an electronics store. The salesman approached and began making his pitch. I told him I was just learning to program and considering an Amiga over his model. I was briskly informed that I needed to get serious with a computer that the rest of the world was using. An Amiga, he told me, was not good for anything but "making pretty pictures." No one, he assured me, could make a living making pretty pictures on his computer.This was possibly the worst advice I have ever received in the history of bad advice. A few years ago, I forgot about being a "respectable" database/enterprise/yada-yada-yada developer. Now I write cool graphics programs, teach graphics programming, own my own software company, and generally have more fun with my career than should probably be allowed by law!I hope I can give you some better advice today. Whether you want to write games, create military simulations, develop scientific visualizations, or visualize large corporate databases, OpenGL is the perfect API. It will meet you where you are as a beginner, and it will empower you when you become your own 3D guru. And yes, my friend, you can make a living making pretty pictures with your computer! Richard S. Wright, Jr. [Wri00]
Links to OpenGL
OpenGL Overview
OpenGL Documentation
OpenGL Source Codes
OpenGL Tutorials
OpenGL Alternatives
- Mesa
An open-source implementation of the OpenGL specification
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