Get Introduction - OpenGL - Opengl

The architecture of OpenGL is based on a client-server model. An application program written to use the OpenGL API is the "client" and runs on the CPU. The implementation of the OpenGL graphics engine (including the GLSL shader programs you will write) is the "server" and runs on the GPU.

OpenGL is not a programming language; an OpenGL application is typically written in C or C++. What OpenGL does allow you to do is draw attractive, realistic 3D graphics with minimal effort. The API is typically used to interact with a GPU, to achieve hardware-accelerated rendering.

It is commonly used to make UI animations more responsive or to handle embedded video or to draw vector graphics – really any visual element you put on the screen is fair game for OpenGL. OpenGL is becoming increasingly ubiquitous and understanding how to leverage its incredible power is a must for developers.

OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-platform, hardware-accelerated, language-independent, industrial standard API for producing 3D (including 2D) graphics. Modern computers have dedicated GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) with its own memory to speed up graphics rendering.

Since OpenGL is a graphics API and not a platform of its own, it requires a language to operate in and the language of choice is C++ . Therefore a decent knowledge of the C++ programming language is required for these chapters.

OpenGL in general is not really for beginners, most guides will assume a certain amount of background knowledge. If you don't have the background knowledge to set up GLFW by yourself, chances are you're missing a lot of the programming theory that will be necessary to really grasp what you're doing.

What is OpenGL? OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) that can be used to render 2D and 3D vector graphics with a ton of features and customization.

If you are not using C/C++, you must download and a package or library for your chosen language that includes the OpenGL bindings. Some come pre-installed, but others have separate downloads.