Chapter    9

Programming 3D Graphics with OpenGL

In this chapter, you will learn all about the OpenGL ES 3D graphics API on the Android platform. OpenGL ES is a version of OpenGL that is optimized for embedded systems (ES) and other low-powered devices such as mobile phones.

The Android platform supports OpenGL ES 1.0 and OpenGL ES 2.0. The OpenGL ES 2.0 is available from API level 8, corresponding to Android SDK release 2.2. ES 2.0 is significantly different from ES 1.0 and is not backward compatible.

ES 1.0 does not rely on the programmability of the GPU (graphics card or the graphics processing unit). The mechanics of drawing is pretty fixed (on the GPU) in this model. Your client code sets the vertices and the necessary transformation matrices ...

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