OpenGL Performer™ is a powerful and comprehensive programming interface for developers creating real-time visual simulation and other performance-oriented 3D graphics applications. It simplifies development of complex applications used for visual simulation, manufacturing, simulation-based design, virtual reality, scientific visualization, interactive entertainment, broadcast video, architectural walk-through, and computer-aided design.

OpenGL Performer provides the advanced features and innovative techniques that enable you to achieve peak performance and make optimal use of system capabilities and sophisticated 3D graphics features. It gives you the capability to scale easily to multiple processors and multiple graphics pipelines, deploy to a wide range of systems and price points, and be ready-made for the graphics systems of today and the future.

OpenGL Performer is built atop the industry standard OpenGL® graphics library and, includes both ANSI C and C++ bindings. It forms the foundation of a powerful suite of tools and features for creating applications on all Silicon Graphics® systems running IRIX® 6.5 or later, 32-bit Intel® based systems with Linux®, 64-bit IntelŪ ItaniumŪ 2 based systems with Linux, and 32-bit Intel based systems with Microsoft® Windows® 2000 or Windows® XP.

OpenGL Performer is an integral part of the SGI® Onyx® Series and Silicon Graphics Prism® visualization systems and visual workstation simulation solutions from SGI and, in particular, provides interfaces to the advanced features of InfiniteReality®, UltimateVision™, and Silicon Graphics Prism class graphics. OpenGL Performer is the flexible, intuitive, toolkit-based solution for developers who want to optimize performance on SGI systems.

Toolkit Overview

OpenGL Performer consists of two main libraries, libpf and libpr, and six associated libraries, libpfdu, libpfdb, libpfui, libpfx, libpfv, and libpfutil.

The basis of OpenGL Performer is the performance rendering library libpr, a low level object-oriented library providing high speed rendering functions based on pfGeoSets, efficient graphics state control using pfGeoStates, and other application-neutral 3D graphics functions.

Layered above libpr is libpf, a real-time visual simulation environment providing a high-performance multi-processing scene graph and rendering system that takes best advantage of SGI symmetric multiprocessing hardware.

The database utility library libpfdu provides powerful functions for defining both geometric and appearance attributes of three-dimensional objects, encourages sharing of state and materials, and generates efficient triangle strips from independent polygonal input.

The database library libpfdb uses the facilities of libpfdu, libpf, and libpr to import database files in many popular industry-standard database formats. These loaders also serve as a guide to developers creating new database importers.

The libpfui library contains user interface building blocks for creating manipulators and user-interface components common to many interactive applications.

The experimental viewer class library libpfx provides an easy-to-use interface for creating basic OpenGL Performer applications.

The modular viewer library libpfv provides a high-level infrastructure for rapid construction and extension of OpenGL Performer applications. It ships with an extensible collection of modules for display control, model manipulation, navigation, picking, and other customization.

Completing the suite of libraries is libpfutil, the OpenGL Performer utility library. It provides a collection of convenience routines implementing tasks such as multiprocessing configuration, Multi-Channel Option support, texture management, graphical user interface tools, input event collection and management, and various traversal functions.

For aid in application development, OpenGL Performer includes sample application source code ranging from simple programs to illustrate particular features to the comprehensive, GUI-driven file viewer perfly.