On OS X, CGL is the foundation layer of windowing system interfaces to OpenGL. With OpenGL windowing system agnostic, companies such as Apple must shoulder the burden of configuring and managing the surfaces used as a destination for OpenGL rendering.įeatures Windowing system interfaces

Further, all internal management of window memory buffers, sometimes referred to as surfaces, was also removed from IrisGL to create OpenGL. Window system logic includes any event mechanism for gathering input from devices such as keyboards and mice, as well as any window ordering or sizing logic used when drawing to a modern windowed user interface. All window system specific logic was therefore removed from IrisGL when moving to OpenGL.

When the decision was made to make IrisGL an open standard, the primary required design change was to make this graphics standard API windowing system agnostic. All windowing system interfaces to OpenGL arose out of the migration of Silicon Graphics proprietary 3D graphics application programming interface ( API) IrisGL to its current open standard form OpenGL.

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