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OpenGL Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL, Version 4.3 Paperback – 20 Mar. 2013

by Dave Shreiner (Author), Graham Sellers (Author), John Kessenich (Author),
3.8 out of 5 stars 92 ratings

Includes Complete Coverage of the OpenGL® Shading Language!

Today’s OpenGL software interface enables programmers to produce extraordinarily high-quality computer-generated images and interactive applications using 2D and 3D objects, color images, and programmable shaders.

OpenGL® Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL®, Version 4.3, Eighth Edition, has been almost completely rewritten and provides definitive, comprehensive information on OpenGL and the OpenGL Shading Language. This edition of the best-selling “Red Book” describes the features through OpenGL version 4.3. It also includes updated information and techniques formerly covered in OpenGL® Shading Language (the “Orange Book”).

For the first time, this guide completely integrates shader techniques, alongside classic, functioncentric techniques. Extensive new text and code are presented, demonstrating the latest in OpenGL programming techniques.

OpenGL® Programming Guide, Eighth Edition, provides clear explanations of OpenGL functionality and techniques, including processing geometric objects with vertex, tessellation, and geometry shaders using geometric transformations and viewing matrices; working with pixels and texture maps through fragment shaders; and advanced data techniques using framebuffer objects and compute shaders.

New OpenGL features covered in this edition include

  • Best practices and sample code for taking full advantage of shaders and the entire shading pipeline (including geometry and tessellation shaders)
  • Integration of general computation into the rendering pipeline via compute shaders
  • Techniques for binding multiple shader programs at once during application execution
  • Latest GLSL features for doing advanced shading techniques
  • Additional new techniques for optimizing graphics program performance
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  1. ISBN-10
    0321773039
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0321773036
  3. Edition
    8th
  4. Publisher
    Addison Wesley
  5. Publication date
    20 Mar. 2013
  6. Part of series
    OpenGL
  7. Language
    English
  8. Dimensions
    17.78 x 5.08 x 22.86 cm
  9. Print length
    984 pages
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Product description

Review

“Wow! This book is basically one-stop shopping for OpenGL information. It is the kind of book that I will be reaching for a lot. Thanks to Dave, Graham, John, and Bill for an amazing effort.”

—Mike Bailey, professor, Oregon State University

“The most recent Red Book parallels the grand tradition of OpenGL; continuous evolution towards ever-greater power and efficiency. The eighth edition contains up-to-the minute information about the latest standard and new features, along with a solid grounding in modern OpenGL techniques that will work anywhere. The Red Book continues to be an essential reference for all new employees at my simulation company. What else can be said about this essential guide? I laughed, I cried, it was much better than Cats—I’ll read it again and again.”

—Bob Kuehne, president, Blue Newt Software

“OpenGL has undergone enormous changes since its inception twenty years ago. This new edition is your practical guide to using the OpenGL of today. Modern OpenGL is centered on the use of shaders, and this edition of the Programming Guide jumps right in, with shaders covered in depth in Chapter 2. It continues in later chapters with even more specifics on everything from texturing to compute shaders. No matter how well you know it or how long you’ve been doing it, if you are going to write an OpenGL program, you want to have a copy of the OpenGL® Programming Guide handy.”

—Marc Olano, associate professor, UMBC

“If you are looking for the definitive guide to programming with the very latest version of OpenGL, look no further. The authors of this book have been deeply involved in the creation of OpenGL 4.3, and everything you need to know about the cutting edge of this industry-leading API is laid out here in a clear, logical, and insightful manner.”

—Neil Trevett, president, Khronos Group

About the Author

Dave Shreiner, Director of Graphics and GPU Computing at ARM, Inc., has been active in OpenGL development nearly since its inception. He created the first commercial OpenGL training course and has taught OpenGL programming for twenty years.

Graham Sellers, coauthor of OpenGL® SuperBible, manages OpenGL Software Development at AMD. He authored many OpenGL feature specifications and helped bring OpenGL ES to desktop computers.

John Kessenich, OpenGL Shading Language Specification Editor, consults at LunarG, Inc., building compiler technology for GLSL. He helped develop OpenGL 2.0 and OpenGL ES 2.0 at 3Dlabs and Intel.

Bill Licea-Kane is Principal Member of Technical Staff at AMD, coauthor of OpenGL® Shading Language Guide, and chairs the OpenGL Shading Language technical subgroup.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Addison Wesley
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ 20 Mar. 2013
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 8th
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 984 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0321773039
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0321773036
  • Item weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 kg
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 17.78 x 5.08 x 22.86 cm
  • Part of series ‏ : ‎ OpenGL
  • Customer reviews:
    3.8 out of 5 stars 92 ratings

About the author

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Dave Shreiner

Dave Shreiner

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Dave Shreiner started his graphics career hacking on a Commodore 64 back in 1981 (a mere 15 years after his birth [yes, late by today's standards], but computers weren't prevalent in Etters, Pennsylvania at that time). Things started to get interesting at the University of Delaware in 1988, where he got to work on his (well, his employer's) first Silicon Graphics Computer Systems ("SGI" to those how know and loved them) machine (a 4D/220GTX running at 25MHz). Combining his love of science, mathematics, and video games, his first graphics programs were for visualizing molecules.

After a somewhat tumultuous college career, Dave went on to do more work on SGI machines doing flight simulation and user-interface design. As that work dried up, he joined SGI in 1991 helping graphics programmers work with Iris GL (OpenGL's predecessor). His career continued as he began teaching classes on Iris GL, user-interface design, and parallel and real-time programming, all the while being mentored by Mason Woo. Around the same time, he was introduced to the fledgling OpenGL API being developed, and asked to author an introductory course on the subject.

Around the same time, he met Vicki - his future wife - eventually mentoring her in OpenGL programming. Not long after, they wed, and formed a family mostly composed of felines.

In 1997, Dave joined forces with Mason in his first writing activity as they updated the "OpenGL Programming Guide" (the "Red Book") to its third edition. At the same time, Mason and co-presenter Ed Angel (author of "Interactive Computer Graphics: A top-down approach using OpenGL") added Dave into their SIGGRAPH (the annual computer graphics conference) course team, and so the mayhem began.

Over the next decade, Dave continued to work at SGI in various roles, including OpenGL driver development for many of their products. He also updated the "OpenGL Programming Guide" three more times, and was involved in presenting another 13 SIGGRAPH courses on OpenGL (and countless others at other conferences). Also during this time, Addison-Wesley - the publisher of the "OpenGL Programming Guide" and numerous other books related to OpenGL - made him series editor for their OpenGL library, allowing him to provide direction and input into their books relating to OpenGL.

In 2006, Dave's career steered to a new vector, as he went off to do work on GPU computing. At the same time, he also worked as chair of SIGGRAPH's courses program (as well as once again presenting a course).

While GPU computing was increasing in relevance, Dave felt that mobile computer graphics was on the cusp of becoming an even bigger thing, and joined ARM's (the embedded CPU company) graphics group to directly contribute to the fray. Soon after, he became involved with OpenGL ES, the embedded version of OpenGL. At the same time, he contributed to the "OpenGL ES 2.0 Programming Guide", and began presenting courses on OpenGL's embedded version.

More recently, Dave joined long-time collaborator and fellow author, Ed Angel, in updating his textbook - "Interactive Computer Graphics: A top-down approach using WebGL", as well as presenting courses at Sonoma State University on computer graphics and parallel programming.

In addition to his part-time job writing and presenting courses, Dave is a senior manager at Unity Technologies, leading their low-level graphics APIs team.

Dave & Vicki live with their cat family in California's Sonoma wine country.

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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Kenneth O'Brien
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book to code with on your lap.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 July 2013
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Covers the latest OpenGL spec. The is very little author written framework or wrappers that plagued the last OpenGL SuperBible. Any such code is explained. I'll be using this book for undergraduate labs.
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  • Pawel Zackiewicz
    4.0 out of 5 stars Good book
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 April 2014
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    I had started learning OpenGL as a part of my university degree and this book is helpful so far. However, some parts of the code given in this book are little bit confusing. Overall is really good.
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  • Gkratsia
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great delivery
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 June 2014
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    The book delivered just on time in an excellent condition. It is the RED BOOK so no comments about the content. Strongly recommended for openGL development.
    One person found this helpful
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  • P. Morriss
    3.0 out of 5 stars OK book, but web guides are a lot cheaper and proved more helpful
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 June 2014
    Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
    This book has been touted by a lot of websites as the 'de facto' OpenGL book, it is OK, but, it has the tendency to introduce a section of code, without really explaining, resulting in me having to search the internet for help.

    My second criticism is that it relies heavily on 3rd party library such as GLUT, which isn't always what you want.

    Lastly, the kindle book has a few formatting issues. A few of the links sent me to blank pages or to an incorrect page.
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  • Hans Guijt
    1.0 out of 5 stars This book goes into great detail about pointless and redundant functions
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 November 2014
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    The book claims to be "the official guide to learning OpenGL", but it does an absolutely lousy job at helping you understand this complex API. It represents an enormous step back from the previous version 2 book, which I also have.

    This book goes into great detail about pointless and redundant functions, like explaining how to allocate, de-allocate, bind, and query for the existence of every type of OpenGL resource (which typically gets a full page per resource, but is always the same except for the function name) - yet it fails to explain what it actually is you are allocating, or what you might use it for, or what a good strategy for its use is.

    As an example: what is a VAO? Sure, having read the book, I know how to allocate one now - now tell me: why would I? What does it do, and how do I best use it?

    Function arguments are also barely explained. A vital table, explaining what the arguments to glReadBuffer() actually do, and that was present in the predecessor book, is now missing. I understand a book must have a limited length, but a book that positions itself as "the official guide to learning" should surely prioritize the basics of the API over much more esoteric subjects like the procedural texturing chapter?

    There's also the use of home-grown software to skip over certain important details - the book uses several pages to describe how to use a function that isn't even in OpenGL, but part of the authors' personal library. Meanwhile, any explanation of the OpenGL API being called inside that function is missing completely - and a listing for the function is also missing.

    All in all, this is a pretty useless and confusing book. If you are buying this in the hopes of understanding OpenGL, you will have a long struggle ahead of you including many trips to the internet to try and figure out what all those weird functions really do.
    7 people found this helpful
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  • John Smith
    2.0 out of 5 stars Should be called "OpenGL with GLUT"
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 March 2018
    Format: Kindle Edition
    From what I've read of the sample if you're a programmer looking to learn OpenGL from the ground up, and really wants to get in depth with it with no wrappers of any kind so you want to be in complete control and do everything yourself this book insults your intelligence with the heavy use of GLUT every page you turn. If you don't know what a wrapper is it's basically another sort of library that does extra stuff for you ontop of another library. In this case it's a wrapper for OpenGL, it does things like create windows for your programs. On top of the graphics that OpenGL renders and I know most people would wanna do that themselves for the experience and education. If people wanted a GLUT guide they would've looked for it.

    The author also likes to talk about libraries other than OpenGL at any chance he gets to force on you, that you sometimes forget this is an OPENGL programming guide. Offering obfuscation rather than explanation for important OpenGL API function calls.

    The structuring of the book is kinda awkward and confusing at times, it will throw big blocks of code randomly without explanation. It doesn't tell you any of the important theoretical stuff you need to know before hand so you know why it's doing what it does. The book even acknowledges too that there will likely be errors with the code it provides, which is never good in a tutorial. Even then it's rare you'll find one that's complete, without being referred to the website.

    Don't waste your money on this! I've seen better on online tutorials and I rarely ever use them.
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  • LaboPie
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good book, complete and well written
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 June 2013
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    I was looking for a book for understand the OpenGL, and start to create some code; this book is exactly what i needed.
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  • GABRIELA
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 August 2015
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Loved to buy again. Thx
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  • Gianluca natale
    5.0 out of 5 stars excellent book
    Reviewed in Italy on 12 October 2014
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    This is an excellent book for learning the newest shader-based OpenGL rendering. It covers most of the new features available in the GLSL. Anyway, as a reader of the entire series, I have to say that it cannot be read easily by a newbie, it requires at least the base knowledge of older OpenGL implementations (any older red book should be read befroe this one, I would advise the version 2.1, which covers completely the old fixed-function pipeline).
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  • Alberto Quezada
    5.0 out of 5 stars Alberto quezada
    Reviewed in Mexico on 29 January 2017
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Es un libro muy bueno contiene todas las bases para aprender a programar en OpenGL. Llegó en tiempo y forma
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  • emddudley
    5.0 out of 5 stars Kindle edition is nicely formatted
    Reviewed in the United States on 14 April 2013
    Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
    tl;dr: Kindle Edition is perfectly readable and code samples are nicely formatted.

    I purchased the Kindle Edition of this book and browsed through it on a Kindle Paperwhite. This review is about the formatting only, not the book's contents.

    The diagrams and tables are very easy to read. They are displayed as images, so the text and lines are a little soft. A few of the renderings don't display well on a small grayscale e-ink screen (figure 6.13, for example), but this is fairly minor and I think the text provides enough explanation.

    Code samples are included as text, and fit just fine in widescreen mode. In portrait mode the lines wrap, but the code is still readable. Links to images of the code are also included before each samples, which is a great fall-back.

    There are a significant number of links in the text to other sections of the book. This is nice for reference, but it can make it harder to read if you like to "tap" through pages rather than "slide", since you have to make sure to avoid the links.

    If you're still unsure about purchasing the Kindle Edition, remember that Amazon has a 7-day return policy on ebooks. You can buy the book and browse through it before deciding whether to keep it.
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  • Ankh_P
    4.0 out of 5 stars Un très bon manuel
    Reviewed in France on 30 June 2013
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Ce livre m'aura aidé à de nombreuses reprises à bien comprendre le fonction d'OpenGL 4. Le moins qu'on puisse dire, c'est qu'il est difficile d'avoir des informations sur cette version d'OpenGL et ce livre a le mérite d'être un des premiers à en faire un très bon descriptif.
    Il est cependant à noter que je ne pense pas que ce livre soit vraiment fait pour être lu de long en large en une seule session. De mon point de vue, il est utile lorsqu'on cherche des informations sur un sujet précis, auquel cas il suffit d'aller lire une partie du chapitre concerné. Le livre en lui même se veut en effet très complet, et non ludique.
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  • Enrique
    4.0 out of 5 stars Excelente para aprendizaje y referencia
    Reviewed in Spain on 11 May 2015
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Gran obra como referencia o para aprender OpenGL moderno desde cero (como era mi caso). Recomendable sin duda, a pesar de ser algo confuso en algunos tramos.
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