Most Widely Adopted Graphics Standard
OpenGL is the premier environment for developing portable, interactive 2D and 3D graphics applications. Since its introduction in 1992, OpenGL has become the industry's most widely used and supported 2D and 3D graphics application programming interface (API), bringing thousands of applications to a wide variety of computer platforms. OpenGL fosters innovation and speeds application development by incorporating a broad set of rendering, texture mapping, special effects, and other powerful visualization functions. Developers can leverage the power of OpenGL across all popular desktop and workstation platforms, ensuring wide application deployment.
From Wikipedia
OpenGL was first create
d as an open and reproducable alternative to Iris GL which had been the proprietary graphics API on Silicon Graphics workstations. Although OpenGL was initially similar in some respects to IrisGL the lack of a formal specification and conformance tests made Iris GL unsuitable for broader adoption. Mark Segal and Kurt Akeley authored the OpenGL 1.0 specification which tried to formalize the definition of a useful graphics API and made cross platform non-SGI 3rd party implementation and support viable. One notable omission from version 1.0 of the API was texture objects. IrisGL had definition and bind stages for all sorts of objects including materials, lights, textures and texture environments. OpenGL eschewed these objects in favor of incremental state changes with the idea that collective changes could be encapsulated in display lists. This has remained the philosophy with the exception that texture objects (glBindTexture) with no distinct definition stage are a key part of the API.
OpenGL has been through a number of revisions which have predominantly been incremental additions where extensions to the core API have gradually been incorporated into the main body of the API. For example OpenGL 1.1 added the glBindTexture extension to the core API.
OpenGL 2.0 incorporates the significant addition of the OpenGL Shading Language (also called GLSL), a C like language with which the transformation and fragment shading stages of the pipeline can be programmed.
OpenGL 3.0 adds the concept of deprecation: marking certain features as subject to removal in later versions. GL 3.1 removed most deprecated features, and GL 3.2 created the notion of core and compatibility OpenGL contexts.
Developer-Driven Advantages
  • Industry standard
    An independent consortium, the OpenGL Architecture Review Board, guides the OpenGL specification. With broad industry support, OpenGL is the only truly open, vendor-neutral, multiplatform graphics standard.
  • Stable
    OpenGL implementations have been available for more than seven years on a wide variety of platforms. Additions to the specification are well controlled, and proposed updates are announced in time for developers to adopt changes. Backward compatibility requirements ensure that existing applications do not become obsolete.
  • Reliable and portable
    All OpenGL applications produce consistent visual display results on any OpenGL API-compliant hardware, regardless of operating system or windowing system.
  • Evolving
    Because of its thorough and forward-looking design, OpenGL allows new hardware innovations to be accessible through the API via the OpenGL extension mechanism. In this way, innovations appear in the API in a timely fashion, letting application developers and hardware vendors incorporate new features into their normal product release cycles.
  • Scalable
    OpenGL API-based applications can run on systems ranging from consumer electronics to PCs, workstations, and supercomputers. As a result, applications can scale to any class of machine that the developer chooses to target.
  • Easy to use
    OpenGL is well structured with an intuitive design and logical commands. Efficient OpenGL routines typically result in applications with fewer lines of code than those that make up programs generated using other graphics libraries or packages. In addition, OpenGL drivers encapsulate information about the underlying hardware, freeing the application developer from having to design for specific hardware features.
  • Well-documented
    Numerous books have been published about OpenGL, and a great deal of sample code is readily available, making information about OpenGL inexpensive and easy to obtain.
  • Source:http://www.opengl.org/ and wiki