SGI and the OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB)—comprised of 11 companies, including Apple—today announced the availability of the OpenGL 1.3 specification. New features of the graphics API are designed to "increase the level of graphics quality and realism." Apple is expected to incorporate the new spec into Mac OS X in the coming months.

New features added in the OpenGL 1.3 specification include:

-- Cube map texturing -- for higher quality environment mapping and

   lighting support

-- Multisampling -- for order-independent anti-aliased rendering of

   points, lines and polygons

-- New texture modes that provide more powerful ways of applying textures

   to rendered objects:

     -- Texture Add Environment mode

     -- Texture Combine Environment mode

     -- Texture Dot3 Environment mode

     -- Texture Border Filtering mode

-- Compressed texture framework -- to allow higher quality textures in

   less memory regardless of file format

by MacNN Staff