Preview do OpenGL 3.0

A Khronos Group, responsável pela API gráfica opensource OpenGL, anunciou as especificações de sua versão 3.0, que promete trazer importantes melhorias e novas funcionalidades para a indústria 3D, incluindo a nova versão da linguagem de programação de shading GLSL 1.30, que promete facilitar a vida dos programadores e disponibilizar recursos mais poderosos.

O OpenGL 3.0 introduz dezenas de novos recursos, incluindo (em inglês):
# Vertex Array Objects to encapsulate vertex array state for easier programming and increased throughput;
# non-blocking access to Vertex Buffer Objects with the ability to update and flush a sub-range for enhanced performance;
# full framebuffer object functionality including multi-sample buffers, blitting to and from framebuffer objects, rendering to one and two-channel data, and flexible mixing of buffer sizes and formats when rendering to a framebuffer object;
# 32-bit floating-point textures and render buffers for increased precision and dynamic range in visual and computational operations;
# conditional rendering based on occlusion queries for increased performance;
# compact half-float vertex and pixel data to save memory and bandwidth;
# transform feedback to capture geometry data after vertex transformations into a buffer object to drive additional compute and rendering passes;
# four new texture compression schemes for one and two channel textures providing a factor of 2-to-1 storage savings over uncompressed data;
# rendering and blending into sRGB framebuffers to enable faithful color reproduction for OpenGL applications without adjusting the monitor’s gamma correction;
# texture arrays to provide efficient indexed access into a set of textures;
# 32-bit floating-point depth buffer support.