OpenVG - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

OpenVG is a standard API

Application programming interface

An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...

designed for hardware-accelerated

Hardware acceleration

In computing, Hardware acceleration is the use of computer hardware to perform some function faster than is possible in software running on the general-purpose CPU...

2D vector graphics

Vector graphics

Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon, which are all based on mathematical expressions, to represent images in computer graphics...

. It is aimed primarily at mobile phone

Mobile phone

A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

s, media and gaming consoles such as the PlayStation 3

PlayStation 3

The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...

, and other consumer electronic devices. It will help manufacturers create flashier user interface

User interface

The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...

s that are less dependent on energy-hungry CPU

Central processing unit

The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...

s. OpenVG is well suited to accelerating Flash or SVG

Scalable Vector Graphics

Scalable Vector Graphics is a family of specifications of an XML-based file format for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static and dynamic . The SVG specification is an open standard that has been under development by the World Wide Web Consortium since 1999.SVG images and their...

sequences. For a 3D match see OpenGL ES
OpenGL ES
OpenGL for Embedded Systems is a subset of the OpenGL 3D graphics application programming interface designed for embedded systems such as mobile phones, PDAs, and video game consoles. OpenGL ES is managed by the not-for-profit technology consortium, the Khronos Group, Inc.- Versions :Several...

. OpenVG is managed by the non-profit

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

technology consortium

Consortium

A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal....

Khronos Group

The Khronos Group is a not-for-profit member-funded industry consortium based in Beaverton, Oregon, focused on the creation of open standard, royalty-free APIs to enable the authoring and accelerated playback of dynamic media on a wide variety of platforms and devices...

History

The OpenVG group was formed on July 6, 2004 by a selection of major firms including 3Dlabs

3Dlabs

3DLABS was the name of the fabless semiconductor company that originally developed the GLINT and PERMEDIA high-end graphics chip technology that was used on many of the worlds leading computer graphics cards in the CAD and DCC markets, including its own Wildcat and Oxygen cards.In 2006 the company...

, Bitboys, Ericsson

Ericsson

Ericsson , one of Sweden's largest companies, is a provider of telecommunication and data communication systems, and related services, covering a range of technologies, including especially mobile networks...

, Hybrid Graphics

Hybrid Graphics

Hybrid Graphics Ltd., often "Hybrid", was a graphics software technology company active from 1994 to 2007 in Helsinki, Finland. Acquired by NVIDIA in 2006, Hybrid Graphics is now NVIDIA Corporation's Helsinki office.- Company history :...

, Imagination Technologies

Imagination Technologies

Imagination Technologies Group plc is a British-based maker of a mobile graphics and microprocessor chip technology primarily known for its PowerVR graphics and Pure DAB radio divisions...

, Motorola

Motorola

Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...

, Nokia

Nokia

Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...

, PalmSource, Symbian

Symbian

Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones and currently maintained by Accenture. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user...

, and Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

. Other firms including chip manufacturers ATI

ATI Technologies

ATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...

, LG Electronics

LG Electronics

LG Electronics is a global electronics and telecommunications company headquartered in Yeouido, Seoul, South Korea. The company operates its business through five divisions: mobile communications, home entertainment, home appliance, air conditioning and business solution...

, Mitsubishi Electric

Mitsubishi Electric

is a multinational electronics and information technology company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group....

, NVIDIA

NVIDIA

Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...

, and Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...

and software- and/or IP vendors DMP, Esmertec, ETRI, Falanx Microsystems, Futuremark, HI Corporation, Ikivo, HUONE (formerly MTIS), Superscape, and Wow4M have also participated in the working group. The first draft specification from the group was made available at the end of 2004, and the 1.0 version of the specification was released on August 1, 2005.

On December 9, 2008, the Khronos Group publicly released the OpenVG 1.1 Specification. This latest revision includes glyph rendering for accelerated text, improved anti-aliasing, and Flash support. An updated reference implementation is also provided, as well as a conformance test suite.

On January 16, 2007, Zack Rusin announced the start of an independent Open Source implementation of OpenVG built on top of QtOpenGL.

Shortly after, Ivan Leben has started another Open Source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

project to implement an ANSI C implementation of the specification purely on top of OpenGL.

Since February 27, 2007 the OpenVG Sample Reference Implementation is available from the Khronos Website under MIT open source license.

On May 1, 2009 Zack Rusin from Tungsten Graphics added OpenVG state tracker to Mesa 3D

Mesa 3D

Mesa 3D is an open source 3D computer graphics library that provides a generic OpenGL implementation for rendering three-dimensional graphics on multiple platforms. It was initially developed by Brian Paul in August 1993, and is still maintained by him today...

, which enables SVG vector graphics to be hardware accelerated by any Gallium3D

Gallium3D

Gallium3D is a free software library for 3D graphics device drivers being developed by VMware, after they acquired Tungsten Graphics – the original authors....

-based driver.

In hardware

AMD/ATI Z160 and Z180 OpenVG 1.x Graphics core. Implemented in the Freescale i.MX35, i.MX51 and i.MX53. IP sold to Qualcomm and rebranded "Adreno" for Snapdragon cores.
ARM Mali Graphics Processing Units
Broadcom BCM4760 SoC - Announced 01/June/09. BCM4760 Contains “an OpenGL(R) ES 1.1/OpenVG(TM) 1.0-compliant graphics processor”
Imagination PowerVR VGX150 OpenVG 1.1
Imagination PowerVR SGX Series5 - API support includes OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0, OpenVG 1.1, OpenGL 2.0/3.0 and DirectX9/10.1
Takumi GV500 - GV300, GV500 Graphics Accelerator IP-Core
Vivante GC300 series - 2D only (GC300, GC350), (2D+3D (GC500, GC600, GC800, GC1000).

For GPUs

Mesa Gallium3D from VMware/Tungsten Graphics provides an OpenVG implementations for cards with Gallium drivers (all Intel, nVidia and AMD/ATI, along with VMware virtual GPU have Gallium drivers either working, in development or planned)

For media accelerators

HuOne AlexVG-forma - Accelerating Vector Graphics API on Media acceleration hardware. Using horse power of Multimedia or 2D bitmap graphics hardware.

On OpenGL ES 1.x

Hooked OpenVG - Hooked Wireless OpenVG complete implementation of both OpenVG 1.01 and OpenVG 1.1, implemented on top of OpenGL ES, and is fully conformant. Claim “It leverages proprietary technology from Hooked in the areas of tessellation and triangulation for shapes and curve.” First released in Feb/2008.
HuOne AlexVG-forge - An OpenVG engine which is 2D vector graphic standard by using the graphic chip that supports OpenGL/OpenGL ES.
Mazatech AmanithVG GLE - Built on top of OpenGL 1.x. Claim “achieving better performance than software rasterizers in terms of high resolution animations and complex special effects (transparencies, fading, realtime rotoscaling and many others).”

On OpenGL ES 2.x

Mazatech AmanithVG GLE - using shaders… not clear… need to find more info
MonkVG

In software

HuOne AlexVG - First released in Sep/2005
Khronos OpenVG Reference implementation
Mazatech AmanithVG SRE - Claim “Thanks to its original polygon rasterization algorithm and dedicated optimized scanline fillers, this engine constitutes the fastest OpenVG software rendering solution available on the market.”
ShivaVG - open source
Vega - Gallium3D state tracker

External links

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