The OpenGL Utility Library (GLU) is a computer

graphics library A graphics library is a program library designed to aid in rendering computer graphics to a monitor. This typically involves providing optimized versions of functions that handle common rendering tasks. This can be done purely in software and runn ...

for

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...

. It consists of a number of functions that use the base OpenGL library to provide higher-level drawing routines from the more primitive routines that OpenGL provides. It is usually distributed with the base OpenGL package. GLU is not implemented in the embedded version of the OpenGL package,

OpenGL ES OpenGL for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES or GLES) is a subset of the OpenGL computer graphics rendering application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D computer graphics such as those used by video games, typically hardware-accel ...

. Among these features are mapping between screen- and world-coordinates, generation of

texture Texture may refer to: Science and technology * Surface texture, the texture means smoothness, roughness, or bumpiness of the surface of an object * Texture (roads), road surface characteristics with waves shorter than road roughness * Texture ...

mipmap In computer graphics, mipmaps (also MIP maps) or pyramids are pre-calculated, optimized sequences of images, each of which is a progressively lower resolution representation of the previous. The height and width of each image, or level, in the ...

s, drawing of

quadric In mathematics, a quadric or quadric surface (quadric hypersurface in higher dimensions), is a generalization of conic sections (ellipses, parabolas, and hyperbolas). It is a hypersurface (of dimension ''D'') in a -dimensional space, and it is de ...

surfaces,

NURBS Non-uniform rational basis spline (NURBS) is a mathematical model using basis splines (B-splines) that is commonly used in computer graphics for representing curves and surfaces. It offers great flexibility and precision for handling both analyt ...

tessellation A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface, often a plane (mathematics), plane, using one or more geometric shapes, called ''tiles'', with no overlaps and no gaps. In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to high-dimensional ...

of polygonal primitives, interpretation of OpenGL error codes, an extended range of transformation routines for setting up viewing volumes and simple positioning of the camera, generally in more human-friendly terms than the routines presented by OpenGL. It also provides additional primitives for use in OpenGL applications, including

sphere A sphere () is a Geometry, geometrical object that is a solid geometry, three-dimensional analogue to a two-dimensional circle. A sphere is the Locus (mathematics), set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three ...

cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infin ...

s and disks. All GLU functions start with the glu prefix. An example function is gluOrtho2D which defines a two dimensional

orthographic projection Orthographic projection (also orthogonal projection and analemma) is a means of representing Three-dimensional space, three-dimensional objects in Two-dimensional space, two dimensions. Orthographic projection is a form of parallel projection in ...

matrix. The GLU specification was last updated in 1998, and it depends on features which were

deprecated In several fields, especially computing, deprecation is the discouragement of use of some terminology, feature, design, or practice, typically because it has been superseded or is no longer considered efficient or safe, without completely removing ...

with the release of OpenGL 3.1 in 2009.{{cite web, url=http://www.opengl.org/registry/ , title=The OpenGL Registry , publisher=Opengl.org , date= , accessdate=May 2, 2013 Specifications for GLU are still availabl
here

References

OpenGL

See also

References