What's GL ?
Ever since the 16-Bit Computers there has been programs that
use
'RayTracing'. It literary makes a computer follow a beam of
light
in a 'vitual' computer-generated room with object(s). A regular
16 Bit
computer needs for every picture more than 8 hours to complete
this job!
Since those days, a lot has changed ! A very cutting edge
computer corporation named Silicon Graphics designed a platform
for using those very advanced graphic techniques! The problem
is that
those applications only work on very high end workstations :
$40,000
The change for us 'low-endians' came when a few years ago some
high speed
3D cards became avaliable, and OpenGL 'ports' from the SGI to
the PC started.