Over the years, the “Red Book” has become the authoritative reference for each new version of the OpenGL API. Now we have the “Gold Book” for OpenGL ES 2.0—a cross-platform open standard ushering in a new era of shader programmability and visual sophistication for a wide variety of embedded and mobile devices, from game consoles to automobiles, from set top boxes to mobile phones.

Mobile phones, in particular, are impacting our everyday lives, as the devices we carry with us are evolving into full mobile computers. Soon we will be living in a world where most of us get our pixels delivered on these personal, portable devices—and OpenGL ES will be at the center of this handheld revolution. Devices such as the Apple iPhone already use OpenGL ES to drive their user interface, demonstrating how advanced graphics acceleration can play an important role in making a mobile phone fun, intuitive, and productive to use. But we have only just started the journey to make our handheld computers even more visually engaging. The shader programmability of the new generation of mobile graphics, combined with the portability and location awareness of mobile devices, will forever change how we interact with our phones, the Internet, and each other.

OpenGL ES 2.0 is a critical step forward in this mobile computing revolution. By bringing the power of the OpenGL ES Shading Language to diverse embedded and mobile platforms, OpenGL ES 2.0 unleashes enormous visual computing power, but in a way that is engineered to run on a small battery. Soon after this graphics capability is used to deliver extraordinary user interfaces, it will be leveraged for a wide diversity of visually engaging applications—compelling games, intuitive navigation applications, and more—all in the palm of your hand.

However, these applications will only be successful if enabled by a complete ecosystem of graphics APIs and authoring standards. This is the continuing mission of the Khronos Group—to bring together industry-leading companies and individuals to create open, royalty-free standards that enable the software community to effectively access the power of graphics and media acceleration silicon. OpenGL ES is at the center of this ecosystem, being developed alongside OpenGL and COLLADA. Together, they bring a tremendous cross-standard and multi-platform synergy to advanced 3D on a wide variety of platforms. Indeed, community collaboration has become essential for realizing the potential of OpenGL ES 2.0. The sophistication of a state-of-the-art programmable 3D API, complete with shading language, an effects framework, and authoring pipeline, has required hundreds of man years of design and investment—beyond any single company’s ability to create and evangelize throughout the industry.

As a result of the strong industry collaboration within Khronos, now is the perfect time to learn about this new programmable 3D API as OpenGL ES 2.0–capable devices will soon be appearing in increasing volumes. In fact, it is very possible that, due to the extraordinary volume of the mobile market, OpenGL ES 2.0 will soon be shipping on more devices than any previous 3D API to create an unprecedented opportunity for content developers.

This level of successful collaboration only happens as the result of hard work and dedication of many individuals, but in particular I extend a sincere thanks to Tom Olson, the working group chair that brought OpenGL ES 2.0 to market. And finally, a big thank you to the authors of this book: You have been central to the creation of OpenGL ES 2.0 within Khronos and you have created a great reference for OpenGL ES 2.0—truly worthy of the title “Gold Book.”

Neil Trevett

Vice President Mobile Content, NVIDIA

President, Khronos Group

April 2008