What Is OpenGL?
OpenGL is an application programming interface—“API” for short—which is merely a software library for accessing features in graphics hardware. Version 4.3 of the OpenGL library (which this text covers) contains over 500 distinct commands that you use to specify the objects, images, and operations needed to produce interactive three-dimensional computer-graphics applications.
OpenGL is designed as a streamlined, hardware-independent interface that can be implemented on many different types of graphics hardware systems, or entirely in software (if no graphics hardware is present in the system) independent of a computer’s operating or windowing system. As such, OpenGL doesn’t include functions for performing windowing tasks or processing ...
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