Android NDK Beginner's Guide - Second Edition

An insight into the OpenGL pipeline

We talk about pipeline because the graphics data goes through a series of steps in which it is transformed. The following diagram shows a simplified representation of the OpenGL ES 2 pipeline:

• Vertex Processing: An input mesh of vertices, given as a vertex buffer object or a vertex array, is transformed vertex by vertex in a vertex shader. The vertex shader can, for example, move or rotate single vertices, project them onto the screen, adapt texture coordinates, compute lighting, and so on. It generates an output vertex that can be processed further in the pipe.
• Primitive Assembly: Individual vertices are connected ...