3DEL: X11

3D Engines List
X11

This list contains 61 X-Windows rendering engines.

Texture-mapping Engines

25.04.2000 Panard Vision 04.04.1997

PV is a free portable Realtime 3D engine allowing for high speed, with no quality loss, rendering on Windows2000/Win32/Dos/Linux platforms by Olivier Brunet (pvision@planet-d.net). It supports both hardware and software rendering.

Perspective, phong-shaded texture-mapping
Flat, gouraud and phong shading
MIP-mapping
Bump mapping
Bilinear filtering
Full sub-pixel/texel accuracy (no flicker, no gap in textures)
Multitexturing pipeline, multitexturing support through GL extensions
User definable clip planes.
Multiple (non-recursive) geometric planar convex mirrors
User definable visibility pipeline (allowing for BSP, Portals or whatever you may think about)
Support for convex polygons, not only triangles
Splines
Static and pseudo dynamic lightmaps (soft or hard)
Realtime dynamic shadow casting
Detail texturing
Procedural textures
Mutltistage materials
Collision Detection (RAPID)
Extendable Object Oriented Particle system
Big mesh classification using octrees
Multiple, colored light sources
Hierarchical animated objects
Display lists
Stencil buffer on hardware
Support for user coded Special FX
Little animation engine with hierarchy
Span-buffer rendering and z-sorting
Support for portal rendering
Generic perspective span renderer to add perspective correction to your fillers
Multicolored fog (linear/exp&exp2) and Unreal like volumeric FX.
Vertex fog support
Software blending
Adavanced hierarchical world management/culling
Switchable graph nodes (allowing for Mesh LODs for instance)
Multithreaded realtime adptative LOD landscape renderer
Support for PNG, TGA & JPG files
Support for 8,15,16, 24 and 32 bits per pixel
Support for 3D Studio 3DS - even animations
Quake I and Quake 2 level support
Support for user file formats
Support for Zip files
Support for DOS SVGA, Direct3D , Direct X7 (with hardware T&L and compressed textures support) OpenGL, 3DFX Glide, PC 3d hardware, X11-Windows on Linux
Support for user made hardware drivers
Support for Visual C++, Watcom C/C++,Borland C, DJGPP and GNU gcc
Written in C/ASM
Simple/Extensible API

More information and the Panard Vision SDK (including 3DS file/animation viewer, Quake I viewer and everything needed to use this engine in your own programs. ) can be found on the Panard Vision Homepage.

23.02.2000 Plush 16.12.1996

Plush is a portable high-performance realtime 3D rendering library by Justin Frankel (frankel@eng.utah.edu) of Nullsoft.

Shaded perspective texture mapping.
Environment mapping.
Shaded translucent surfaces.
Phong shading via environment maps.
Z-buffer and painter's algorithm (with radix or qsort) rendering.
Multiple light sources with point and directional lights.
Hierarchical Objects.
Palette optimization with dithering.
Support for 3D Studio 3DS. Caligari COB and plush PLO object files.
Support for PCX and PLT texture files.
Full 3D frustrum clipping.
Object morphing.
Spline interpolation with tension,
Limited to 256 colors.
Resolution independand.
Written in portable ANSI C, tested on DOS and with X11-Windows under Linux, SunOS, Solaris, MacOs, Windows, AIX and HP/UX.

More information and some demos and the libraries can be found on the Plush Homepage.

02.02.2000 OpenGL 06.09.1995

OpenGLŽ is a software interface for applications to generate interactive 2D and 3D computer graphics. OpenGL is designed to be independent of operating system, window system, and hardware operations, and it is supported by many vendors. OpenGL is available on PCs, Macintosh and workstations.
OpenGL provides a wide range of graphics functions: from rendering a simple geometric point, line, or filled polygon, to texture mapping NURBS curved surfaces.

Geometric primitives (points, lines, and polygons)
Raster primitives (bitmaps and pixel rectangles)
RGBA or color index mode
Display list or immediate mode
Viewing and modeling transformations
Hidden Surface Removal (depth buffer)
Alpha Blending (transparency)
Antialiasing
Texture Mapping
Atmospheric Effects (fog, smoke, and haze)
Polynomial Evaluators (to support Non-uniform rational B-splines)
Pixel Operations (storing, transforming, mapping, zooming)
Accumulation Buffer
Stencil Planes
Feedback, Selection, and Picking
OpenSource

The OpenGL functions described are provided on every OpenGL implementation to make applications written with OpenGL easily portable between platforms. All licensed OpenGL implementations are required to pass the Conformance Tests, and come from a single specification and language binding document.
More information and the source of the sample implementation can be found on the OpenGL Sample Implementation Homepage.

02.02.2000 Apprentice 11.12.1996

Apprentice is an Inventor emulation library that reads and displays .iv files from Eric Victor Powers (powerg@deltanet.com).

Perspective texture mapping.
Gouraud shading.
Multiple lights.
Hierarchical objects.
NURB patches.
Support for Windows 95 (with OpenGL) and X11-Windows (using Mesa or OpenGL) on SGI, SunOS, Solaris and Linux.
C++ object-oriented concept.
Source is available to educational institutes, staff members, and students for non-commercial, educational use only.

More information and the license agreement can be found on the Apprentice Homepage.

22.04.1999 Mesa 01.01.1995

Mesa is a 3-D graphics library with an API which is very similar to that of OpenGL by Brian Paul (brianp@ssec.wisc.edu).

Mesa works on X11-Windows based systems, Windows, Linux SVGA, NeXT, Macintosh, DOS, Amiga, VMS and OS/2. Mesa was written with portability in mind.
Support for PC 3D hardware (3DFX chip).
Smooth shading, accumulation buffer.
Dithering
Fog/depth cuing.
Shaded perspective texture mapping.
Gouraud shading .
Support for NURBS patches.

More info and links to download the source can be found on the Mesa Homepage

01.03.1999 3D Foundation Clases 19.12.1997

3DFC is a 3D portal rendering engine from Leandro Bernsmuller (lebe@geocities.com).

Gouraud shaded, affine texturemapping.
Portal rendering with edge clip buffer.
Colored light sources.
Collision detection between spheres and sectors.
Support for DOS and Linux (using SvgaLib and X11 Windows).
Support for backpropagation neural networks .
Input from keyboard or sockets network communication .
Support for PCX texture files.
C++ sources.

More information, screenshots, the source and executables can be found on the 3D Foundation Classes Homepage.

12.01.1999 3DGPL 27.06.1995

3DGPL 2.0 is a portable 3D engine from Sergei Savchenko (savs@cs.mcgill.ca).

Perspective texturemapping (via linear interpolation every 32 pixels per scanline)
Ray tracing.
Gouraud shading, flat shading of polygons.
Z-Buffer and BSP rendering.
Bicubic patches.
Landscape rendering.
Portal rendering.
2D and 3D clipping.
3D transformations with fixed point or float math.
2D text rendering.
Portable C with support for DOS, X11-Windows, NeXTStep, Windows 3.1/95 and Mac.
Tutorial texts, source code available and extensive 3D documentation

The source, tutorial, screenshots and more information can be found on 3DGPL Homepage. A Mac port of 3DGPL 1.0 done by Ingemar Ragnemalm can be found at ftp.lysator.liu.se.

12.10.1998 Roketz 05.05.1998

Roketz is a 3D game engine by Lars Andersson ( lars_and@algonet.se ).

Unshaded, perspective texture mapping.
Subtexel/subpixel accuracy.
VGA, Tweaked VGA and VESA 2.0 resolutions.
Support for DOS, Linux/SVGALib and Linux/X11.
Quake-like console.
Portal rendering.
C++/ASM source that compiles under Watcom, DJGPP2 and GCC.

More information, screenshots, a demo and the source can be found via Lars' 3D Graphics Programming Page.

23.07.1998 JawMD2 16.02.1998

JawMD2 is a Quake2 Model Viewer by Jawed Karim ( jkarim@students.uiuc.edu ).

Unshaded, perspective texture mapping.
Antiliased wireframe, gouraud and textured rendering modes.
Full frame animation support
Uses OpenGL for 3D rendering.
Support for Windows 95/NT and Linux (using MesaGL).

More information, screenshots, the executables and the source can be found on the JawMD2 Homepage.

04.03.1998 PGS 04.03.1998

PGS is a commercial set of libraries for building 3D CAD applications and rendering 3D CAD models from Geometric Technology Systems.

Wireframe, graphical HLR (hidden line removal), HLR with ghosting (hidden lines rendered in alternate color), mixed mode ( shading with edges), flat shading and gouraud shading.
Perspective texture mapping.
Direct support for NURB curves and surfaces.
Z-Buffer rendering.
Transparency
Full support for sectioning: section outlining and fill, different types of rendering on opposite sides of section plane, section plan view.
Real time re-tessellation of surfaces to screen resolution (when used with GTS Tessellation library).
Direct support for picking.
Optimized for large CAD models and triangle sets.
Support for IGES (2D and 3D geometry), STL, VRML, HPGL, CGM, TIFF, TARGA, GIF, PNG, and JPEG.
Dynamically switchable driver architecture.
Support for Windows 95 / NT and UNIX (Sun, SGI, HP, IBM and Linux).

More information and contact information can be found on the Geometric Technology Systems Homepage.

14.11.1997 Sofie 14.11.1997

Sofie is a 3D game engine for X11 from Stephan Schiessling ( Stephan.Schiessling@mathematik.uni-regensburg.de ) .

Perspective, non-shaded texture mapping.
MIP-mapping.
BSP rendering.
Multiple objects with physics (Mass, velocity...).
Collision detection.
2D sprites (for explosions).
Support for X11-Windows (with MIT-Shm-Extension) on Linux.
Support for 8 and 16 bit color.
Joystick support.
C++ source.

More information, screenshots, documenation, binary and the source can be found on the Sofie Homepage.

03.11.1997 OpenGL rendering techniques 03.11.1997

The PGPT are sample programms and tutorials using the OpenGL API from Mark Kilgard (mjk@sgi.com) from Silicon Graphics.

Lens-flares.
Shadows, lighting, textures and reflections.
Halos.
Underwater caustics.
Colored shadows.
C source.

More information, the source and tutorials can be found on the OpenGL rendering techniques Homepage.

27.10.1997 XGL 21.05.1996

The Solaris XGL Graphics Library is a mature graphics interface, providing foundation-level geometry graphics support for Solaris-based applications from Sun Microsystems.
The XGL Graphics Library is both an Application Program Interface (API) and a geometry foundation library and is just one part of the powerful graphics environment provided as standard with the SUN Solaris 2.x operating system.

Shaded, perspective texture mapping.
Transparency.
Accumulation buffer.
Antialiasing.
Nurbs, meshes, polygons, triangle lists, lines.
Dynamic loadable devices, hardware acelleration.
Support for SPARC and x86 microprocessor architectures.
C++ API.

More information on the XGL Homepage.

09.06.1997 J3D SpaceCrafter 09.06.1997

J3D SpaceCrafter is a high level 3D Graphics and Virtual Reality API for Java from InWorld VR, Inc.

Shaded, perspective texture mapping.
Tested on Intel, Macintosh, Solaris, Javastation, JavaOS and SGI.
Hierarchical objects.
ZSorting and z-buffer.
Collision detection.
Multiple 3D clipping choices.
3D sprites.
Standard 3D objects.
Built in terrain generation and terrain following functions.
Support for 8 bit indexed and 24 bit color modes.
Java API.

More information and screenshots can be found on the J3D SpaceCrafter Homepage .

06.05.1997 World Toolkit 01.01.1995

WTK is a commercial, portable, cross-platform software development system for building high-performance, real-time, integrated 3D applications for scientific and commercial use from Sense 8 Corporation.

Shaded, perspective texture mapping.
Z-buffer rendering.
Multiple viewport and lightsources, 3D paths, portals, 2D texts and shapes, object animations.
Supports user-defined drawing routines
Multi-processing/multi-pipeline support
Support for Windows 95 (Direct 3D), Windows NT (OpenGL), Sun, Silicon Graphics, Evans & Sutherland Freedom Series, Hewlett-Packard, and DEC.
High level scene management such as hierarchical object culling, efficient use of transform information and level-of-detail switching.
Support for many I/O devices like HMDs, shutter glasses, 3D trackers, gloves and 3D audio systems.
Support for VRML, 3D Studio, Pro Engineer, Multigen and Wavefront files.
Network support.
C/C++ API.
Sense 8 also provides a 3D Editor (World Up) based on WTK.

More information on the Sense 8.

01.04.1997 Threedom 15.08.1996

MThreedom is a 3D engine from Philip Stephens (philip@galaxy.bocaraton.ibm.com). The DOS-port was done by Phil Frisbie (pfrisbie@geocities.com).

Flat shaded, perspective texture mapping.
Z-buffer rendering.
Windows 95, X11-Windows and DOS SVGA support.
C source.

The source and more information can be found on Threedom Homepage.
The DOS-port can be found at Phil Frisbie's Programming Page.

21.03.1997 3dGen (Link Problem!) 16.11.1995

3DGen is a 3D Games Engine by Michael L. Lewis ( mlewis@ny.ubs.com).

Perspective corrected texture mapping.
Realtime light shading of texture maps.
Z-buffer rendering.
Object instancing.
3D morphing of objects.
3D collision detection.
Fogging and hazing.
Multi-resolution objects (LOD switching).
Support for 3D-Studio ASC files.
ANSI C code.
Support for X11-Windows.

More information and screenshots can be found on the Homepage of Michael L. Lewis. For a demo, contact the autor via email.

06.03.1997 AC3D Modeler 06.03.1997

AC3D is an object/scene modeler by Andy Colebourne (andy@comp.lancs.ac.uk).
There are different versions of AC3D available:

Shaded texture mapping and smooth gouraud polygon version using OpenGL on SGI.
Non-shaded polygons and wireframe version on SunOS and Sun Solaris using X11-Windows.
Shaded texture mapping and smooth gouraud polygon version using Mesa on Linux systems.

The features of the modeler are:

Tree, object and vertex manipulation.
Extrusion and revolving of polylines and objects.
Surface normal generation.
Texture coordinate manipulation.
Spline surface generation.
Surface attribute manipulation.
Support for DXF, lightwave and raw triangle import.
Output of VRML, Dive, Massive, RenderMan and POV-Ray files.
Written in C.

More information and the binaries for the different platforms can be found on the AC3D Modeler Homepage.

27.01.1997 VRend 06.11.1995

VR is a 3D renderer from Kenny Hoff (hoff@cs.unc.edu).

Polygon-based model rendering includes convex, concave, and self-intersecting polygons.
Fully-generalized hidden surface removal allowing for protruding surfaces.
Shaded perspective texture mapping with tiling and transparency.
Full 3D clipping to the viewplane and the sides of the viewplane window.
Movable front clipping plane allowing a cut-away view of the "inside" of models.
Phong shading.
Complete hierachical modeling system.
Independent object and world coordinate system transformations.
Incremental depth-shading.
C++ source.
Support for X11-Windows and Windows 3.1.

More information (and lots of pictures) on the VRend Homepage or WinRend Homepage.
You also find some 3D tutorials and the source of the scanline-renderer on the Homepage of Kenny Hoff

12.11.1996 GRAFICA NATURA 20.09.1996

GRAFICA NATURA is a 3-D realtime rendering system which was primarily designed for realistic visualization of natural objects and phenomena, e.g. plants, landscapes, clouds and water. GN is written by Steffen Hauser (stephen@cs.tu-berlin.de).

Linear, shaded polygon texture-mapping.
Support for X11-Windows and DOS.
Primitive objects (e.g. cube, disk, sphere, cone, cylinder, plane, bezier-patch, rotation curve, height field).
Procedural plant models.
Hierarchical object construction.
Lambert and gouraud shaded surfaces.
Unlimited number of light sources.
Wireframe or solid rendering (gouraud shaded and textured surfaces).
Z-buffer rendering.
Transparent surfaces.
Import:
- Objects: 3DS, GEM, NFF, PLG, TRI
- Textures: PPM, TGA
Output:
- Objects: VRML (no materials and textures yet)
- Images: PPM, TGA
Color specification with RGB-, HSV-, HLS- or CMY-format.
Atmospheric effects (e.g. fog, haze).
C++ source.
Simple but powerful stack-based programming language with more than 150 build-in commands for definition of objects, surfaces, textures, camera movements and lightning effects.

The source and more information can be found on the GRAFICA NATURA Homepage.

05.11.1996 Reality Lab 01.01.1995

RL is a commercial 3D library by Microsoft RenderMorphics. The version 2.0 has the following features:

Wire Frame, Flat, Gourad and Phong shading models.
Perspective corrected texture mapping in any shading model.
Environment and motion video mapping.
Full transparency, including alpha maps for textures.
Z-buffering.
Animated backgrounds with optional depth information.
Multiple, movable, coloured lightsources.
4, 8, 16, 24 bit colour depths in both ramp and RGB modes.
SVGA and Windows 3.1/95/NT, X11-Windows on RS6000/SunSparc/SGI, System7 on Mac and PowerMac (both planned, no port yet), Sony PSX support.
Multiple instancing of objects and hierarchies.
Multiple viewports, devices and cameras.
Bezier patches with subdivision on the fly.
Depth cueing with atmospheric effects (e.g. fog, haze).
Projected shadows.
Stereoscopic capability.
Free form deformation toolkit.
Complex spline interpolated motion.
Collision detection toolkit.
Immediate mode allows low-level control over polygon lighting and rendering through direct access to vertices and normals.
70 pages documentation
C-based API.
Supports hardware accelerators like GLiNT, Matrox MGA Impression and 3D device standards like Intel 3DR, Microsoft 3DDDI.

Contact: Servan@Render.com (Servan Keondjian) or morph@microsoft.com.
The old RealityLab Homepage is currently not available - i already did a search on AltaVista and at MicroSoft to find a new homepage - there are recent microsoft products that use the RealityLab engine, but no reference to the engine itself.
There is a free Windows 3.1/95/NT VRML viewer from InterVista Software Inc, using the RealityLab libraries available at the WorldView Homepage.
Information about WIRL (another Windows 3.1/95/NT VRML viewer that combines the VR capabilties of the VREAM package with the Reality Lab rendering engine) is available via the VREAM Homepage.

22.05.1996 OpenGVS 22.05.1996

OpenGVS is a high-level, applications programming interface (API) for professional, real-time, computer graphics software developers from Gemini Technology Corportation.

Support for OpenGL and Direct3D.
Hardware support for SGI, 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics, Intergraph's TDZ, 3DLabs GLINT, Lockheed-Martin's Real3D and DEC/E&S Freedom.
Texture mapping.
Fog model for atmospheric special effects.
Collision detection.
Hierarchical objects.
Import models from MultiGen, GameGen, Wavefront and others.

More information on the Gemini Technology Homepage.

19.04.1996 TAGL 01.01.1995

TAGL (Threedee Advanced Graphic Libraryis) a portable 3D C++ class library from Bruno Levy (bruno@ensg.u-nancy.fr).

Linear texturemapping in RGB and colormap mode.
Environment mapping.
Support for 8bpp, 15bpp, 16bpp, 24bpp and 32bpp displays.
Z-buffer rendering.
Gouraud shading and dithering, wireframe and flatshading rending.
RGB emulation in 8bpp mode.
Dynamic linking, to load new drivers at run time.
Multiple output windows or rendering ports inside a single window.
Tested with DOS and under X11-Windows with Linux, SunOs, Solaris, HPUX, OSF1 and IRIX.
C++ design with inheritance, C++ inlining, generic scanliners.
3 layer design (GraphicPort for portable framebuffer access, PolygonEngine for rasterization and GeometryManager for 3D transformation and graphic primitives).
GEOM file object viewer.
C++ API with lots of sample programs,

The full source can be found at sunsite.unc.edu. More information in the TAGL Readme.

18.01.1996 RenderWare 01.01.1995

RW is a portable 3D API for DOS, Windows, Mac and X11-Windows by Criterion Software Ltd.

Z-buffer and scanline renderer
Multiple colored lightsources (distant, point and spot lights)
Multiple cameras.
Gouraud lighted, dithered, transparent, perspective texturemapping.
Animated textures and environment mapping.
Object picking.
Materials support.
3D sprites.
Backdrop images.
Depth cueing.
Support for graphics accelerator cards like the GLINT chip.
Support for stereo glasses and headsets.
DFX, 3DS and VRML converters.
900 pages documentation

More info on the Criterion Software Ltd Homepage.
RenderWare FTP Some RW-Demos: ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de
A demo of Meme (Multitasking Extensible Messaging Environment) that uses the RenderWare API is available via the Immersive Systems Homepage.

16.11.1995 Amber (Link Problems!) 16.11.1995

Amber is a set of C++ classes from DIVE Laboratories Inc. Amber enable developers to create complex distributed virtual environments on multiple platforms.

Windows 3.1/95 support (using 3DR or RealityLab ), SGI, DOS/Windows with Creative 3DBlaster and Sun running Solaris with X11-Windows.
File support for NFF, WRL and TGA.
Hardware support for 5DT Glove, VIO HMD.
Physical properties and behavior modeling.
Distributed interactive simulation (DIS) and multi-user system support using windows sockets and TCP/IP.
Add on modules like special fx, atmospheric fx, agents, inverse kinematics, morphing...

More infomation, demos and a shareware version can be found on the Amber Homepage.

01.01.1995 Dore 01.01.1995

Dore' is a powerful 3D graphics subroutine library, made freely available by the Kubota Graphics Corp. It provides a comprehensive set of tools for creating graphics applications. It is also easy to use, portable, and extendable. This version has interfaces/drivers to X11-Windows, PEX, IrisGL, OpenGL, Postscript and more. It has been ported onto most Unix systems, including Linux, NetBSD, and FreeBSD. It has also been ported to Windows NT 3.5. Dore is available on the Dore FTP Server

01.01.1995 Purple 01.01.1995

Purple is an evaluation kit for fast 3D engines and virtual reality I/O devices from Karsten Isakovic (ki@cs.tu-berlin.de).

ANSI C, runs on X11-Windows, Mac, Windows, OSF and TOS. There is also a simple C++ interface.
Hierarchical, movable BSP subscenes with level of detail management for the objects, object grouping.
System-primitive rendering for wire/flat shading, z-buffer, framebuffer only or z-only rendering, direct 3D hardware support (for DEC Kubota)
Flat or gouraud shading in combination with dithering, transparency and texture-mapping.
Unlimited colored, movable lightsources (distant, point and spotlights).
Material constants (ambient, diffuse, specular).
File I/O: rib,asc,rwx,plg,fig,geo,geom,scn,tri,ply. Texture I/O: tga,tiff,gif
Multiple cameras with stereo-support that render into windows or textures.
Simulated virtual person, all elements are controllable with I/O devices like Bird-sensor, Logitech 3D mouse, K1 glove, Powerglove, Sega Activator, Flightstick or 2D Mouse.
Internal task concept, all actions run as purple tasks.
2D sprites, 2D and 3D text, overlay and underlay text, backdrop images, fog/distance cueing.
Environment mapping and mirrors.
Portal rendering with 3D frustrum clipping.
Stereo rendering for red/blue glasses or for CyberMaxx HMD.
Work in progress:
- MIP-mapping and animation for textures.
- Fast shadows with shadow mapping.
- Phong and bump-mapping.
- Anti-aliasing, 2D effects like lens-flares and fire.
- Distributes object visualisation, networked worlds.

Gouraud-shading Engines

06.04.1998 View3DS 06.04.1998

View3DS is 3D Studio file viewer from David Farrell (fdavid@cyberramp.net).

Z-buffered gouraud shading.
Uses OpenGL rendering API.
Support for 3DS object files.
Conversion of 3D model to OpenGL C source code.
Support for X11-Windows, Linux, Windows 95 / NT.
C source.

More information, screenshots, executables and the source can be found on the Homepage of David Farrell.

23.10.1997 3Dom 23.10.1997

3Dom is gouraud shading 3D editor from Samuel Debleeckere aka 'silicon' and Koen Deforch aka 'jozef' (3dom@cs.kuleuven.ac.be).

Uses open OpenGL or Mesa for 3D output.
Support for X11-Windows on Linux, HP-UX, Solaris and SGI.
Gouraud and wireframe rendering.
Movable light sources.
Object primitives and object manipulation.
Support for Rayshade scene files, output of MGF and povray files.
C source.

More information, screenshots, binaries and the source can be found on the 3Dom Homepage.

23.10.1997 GL-Space 23.10.1997

GL-Space is gouraud shading 3D editor from Philip Eckenroth and Michael Tipping ( greywolf@unm.edu ).

Uses open OpenGL or Mesa for 3D output.
Support for X11-Windows on Linux, Solaris, SunOS and SGI.
Gouraud and wireframe rendering.
Movable light sources and cameras.
Object primitives and object manipulation.
User interface based on TrueSpace.
Support for TrueSpace 2.0 ASCII model format.
C source.

More information, screenshots and the source can be found on the GL-Space Homepage.

02.05.1997 3D with Hoops: Build Interactive 3D Graphics into your C++ Applications 02.05.1997

3DWH is a book (ISBN: 0-201-87025-8) from Wm Leler and Jim Merry that contains a CD rom with the HOOPS library for all supported platforms ( Windows 3.1/NT, Mac, X11-Windows on Silicon Graphics, HP, IBM RS/6000, Sun Sparc and DEC OSF/1).

10.01.1997 Graph3D (Link Problems!) 01.01.1995

The Graph3D library supports Gouraud shading, color dithering, good support for a range of color palettes (i.e. 8-bit, 16-bit, 24-bit color), and support for the MSDL scene file format. It is written in C++ for maximum portability. The engine runs under X11-Windows and MacOs. The full source is available at ftp.math.ohio-state.edu or via the homepage of the author Greg Ferrar.

15.07.1996 Lib3d (Link Problems) 15.07.1996

Lib3d is a 3d library from Keith Whitwell ( keithw@ozemail.com.au ).

Gouraud shading.
Z-buffer rendering.
Support for X11-Windows and DOS.
8, 16 and 32 bit graphics modes.
Pascal/ASM source code.

More information and the source can be found on the Lib3d Homepage.

07.03.1996 Free3d (Link Problem!) 07.03.1996

F3D is a portable, object-oriented real-time 3d rendering library from Brandon Van Every (vanevery@blarg.net).

Gouraud and flat shading, texture mapping is planned.
Painters sorting.
X11-Windows support.
C++ source code.

More information and the source can be found on the Free3d Homepage.

15.01.1996 LibRaum (Link Problems!) 15.01.1996

LR is a commerical 3D API from Bitblox (hedu@ipn.uni-kiel.de).

X11-Windows running under HPUX and Linux.
Wireframe, flat and gouraud shading.
Multiple camera support.
Multiple lights, point and spotlights.
Painters sorting and z-buffering.
RAD scene language, builtin shapes.
C++ API.

More info and demos on the libRaum Homepage.

11.12.1995 HOOPS 06.11.1995

HOOPS is a commerical 3D API from Ithaca Software, which was bought by Autodesc Inc a few years back.

Windows 3.1/NT, Mac, X11-Windows on Silicon Graphics, HP, IBM RS/6000, Sun Sparc and DEC OSF/1 .
Flat, gouraud, phong and silhoutte mode.
Fast software z-buffer.
Display, printer and plotter support.
Support for hardware acceleration boards.
Object database management.
HDI (Heidi, Hoops Device Interface) is used for 3D Studio Max under Windows NT and in AutoCAD R13c3.
Easy to programm.

Contact:1001 Marina Village Parkway, Alemeda, CA 94501
More info on the Hoops Homepage of Tech Soft.

01.11.1995 Geomview 01.01.1995

GV is an interactive program, written by staff members of the Geometry Center, for viewing and manipulating geometric objects. It can be used as a standalone viewer for static objects or as a display engine for other programs which produce dynamically changing geometry.

Z-buffer renderer
SGI, NeXT and X11-Windows, binary and source distribution
polyhedra with shared vertices (.off), quadrilaterals, rectangular meshes, vectors, and Bezier surface patches of arbitrary degree including rational patches.
Picking on an object, edge or vertex level
Direct mouse manipulation, control panels, and keyboard shortcuts
Supports OOGL, a 3D file format for WWW 3D objects.

More info on the Geomview Homepage or in the Geomview Readme.

01.11.1995 XVirtual 14.06.1995

XVirtual is a 3D animation engine from Marcus Roth (roth@aix01.rz.fht-mannheim.de).

Animation support.
Shadow mapping.
Z-buffer rendering.
The C++ source has german comments.
Support for X11-Windows, needs xview library.

The source can be found on ftp.fht-mannheim.de. More info in the XVirtual Readme.

Doom/Wolfenstein Engines

12.01.1999 Ray16 12.01.1999

Ray16 is a 3D raycasting engine from Hansjörg Malthaner ( hansjoerg.malthaner@gmx.net ).

Multi-height walls
Windows / skies
Depth shading
Fog simulation
Moving textures
Animated and/or moving objects
Basic support for layered textures
8, 16 bit and Java version
There are two versions a Linux/X11 (shared memory) C program and a portable java program.

More information and a demo of the interactive java version can be found on the Hajo's 3D Raycasting Engine Homepage.

01.04.1997 Baltimore 01.04.1997

Baltimore is a portable doom engine by Song Li (sli2@gl.umbc.edu).

Orthogonal, texturemapped, variable height walls.
Floor, ceiling and sky texture mapping.
No shading yet.
Simple collision detection, no sliding on walls yet.
Stairs and elevators.
Support for Windows 95/NT and for X11-Windows (binaries are available for Irix, Solaris, Aix and Linux).
C++ source.

The source and binaries can be found on the Baltimore Homepage.

30.12.1996 Red Sector 30.12.1996

Red Sector is a 3D engine by Byron Foster (foster@enuxsa.eas.asu.edu).

Non-orthogonal variable-height walls.
Sloped walls.
Rooms above rooms.
Perspective-correct texture mapping on walls, roofs and floors.
Transparent texture mapping.
Look up / look down, variable eye level
Collision detection with walls and objects.
Distance cueing, fogging.
Animated 3D sprite objects.
Runs under DOS and X11-Windows under Linux.
Support for SVGA resolutions.

A demo can be found on the Red Sector Homepage.

09.09.1996 WebView 3D 25.09.1995

WV is doom style 3d engine from Philip Stephens ( philip@galaxy.bocaraton.ibm.com).

X11-Windows support for Solaris, SunOS, BSDI, AIX and Linux. HiColor (16 bit) support for DOS.
Variable window size.
Non-orthogonal walls, texturemapped floor and ceiling.
Regions can have different light levels.
Depth cueing.
Dithered lighting and light cueing.
Backdrop images.
BSP rendering.
Collision detection.
8 sided sprites.
Networking support and network server. World Wide Web support.
3D chat function.
C source with special adaptions for Intel-based machines.
GIF and JPG texture support.
WT- and WORLD-file to BSP converter.
Real-time physics.

The source and more information can be found on the WebView3D Development Page.

15.04.1996 The Difference Engine / r95 15.04.1996

TDE/r95 is DOOM style renderer by Michael Schöne and Bernd Kreimeier (bernd@nero.uni-bonn.de).

Non rectangular walls with different height.
No floor or ceiling mapping.
Sky mapping.
No depth cueing.
Loosely based on Chris Laurel's "wt".
X11-Windows under Linux (ELF, XFree, X SHM) and Solaris (X SHM) binaries.
WAD file I/O, multi file management, load on demand, caching basics.
Written in ANSI C (GNU GCC-2.7.x).

More information and a demo on The Difference Engine / r95 Homepage.

23.11.1995 Final 01.01.1995

Final is the final project of Peter Mattis (petm@soda.csua.berkeley.edu). The engine is written in portable ANSI C and was tested with a Apple Macintosh and X11-Windows on HP's and Sun SparcStation.

Gouraud shading and depth shading.
Collision detection between objects and walls.
Support for true 3D objects instead of sprites.
Support for 8 and 24 Bits.

More info, the source and textures can be found on the Homepage of Peter Mattis or in the Final Readme .

31.08.1995 WT 01.01.1995

Supports X11-Windows, Linux, MacOS, OS/2, DOS, Amiga
TCL interface
Extension with collision detection

The source and some extensions can be found at the WT ftp site magoo.uwsuper.edu or at ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de (wt-05 source only). More info in the WT Readme.
The MacWT version can be found on ftp.circa.ufl.edu or via the Homepage of William Hayden.

Flat-shading Engines

21.05.1999 Smeeze's 3D Engine 21.05.1999

Smeeze's 3D Engine is a flatshading 3d engine for X11 from Robert Smies ( smies@hio.hen.nl ).

Flatshaded polygons
Z-Buffer rendering
Support for 16 bit color rendering
Should compile under most unixes
C++ source, no documentation

More information, screenshots and the source can be found on Smeeze's 3D Engine Homepage.

25.02.1997 BattleBall 25.02.1997

BattelBall is a single-/multi-user 3D game which runs under X11-Windows from Philip Hardin (pahardin@cs.utexas.edu).

Flat polygons using X11 primitives.
BSP rendering.
3D objects, object morphing.
Simple physics.
Computer players.
C++ source, uses STL (Standard Template Library).

More information, compiled versions and the source can be found on the Homepage of Philip Hardin.

24.02.1997 Mirage 22.01.1997

Mirage is a unix port and followup of VR386 from Christophe Maurel ( maurel@electech.polymtl.ca ).

Hierarchical linked figures.
Animation state machine.
Support for WorldToolKit NFF, AutoCad DXF and VR386/Render386 PLG and WLD files.
Support for X11-Windows on SGI, SunOs and Linux.
Tcl/Tk interface.
Portable C source.

More information and the source can be found on the Mirage Homepage.

19.04.1996 WatRend 19.04.1996

WR is portable scanline-based 3D rendering engine from Gavriel State (gav@mag1.magmacom.com).

Support for Macintoshes, SGI machines, X11-Windows, x86 DOS and Linux.
Fixed-point and floating-point math.
Based on Rend386 and Avril.
Active edge table scanlining.
PLG file support.

More information and the source on Gav's Homepage.

16.11.1995 work in progress 16.11.1995

3D engine by Keith Lucas (sillywiz@wardrobe.demon.co.uk).

X11-Windows support using X11 polygons.
Painters alg.
Single lightsource mounted on the camera.
Written in C.

01.09.1995 MultiVerse 01.01.1995

MV is a multi-user, non-immersive, X11-Windows based Virtual Reality system, primarily focused on entertainment. MultiVerse was written by Robert Grant (RGrant.LAX1B@Xerox.com).

Client-Server based model, using Berkeley sockets.
No limit to the number of users (apart from performance).
Hierachical Objects (allowing attachment of cameras and light sources).
Multiple light sources (ambient, point and spot).
Objects can have extension code, to handle unique functionality, easily attached.

Source: ftp.u.washington.edu or at ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de . More info in the Multiverse Readme.

Wireframe Engines

16.02.1998 FLY8 03.07.1995

The FLY8 package is a wireframe multiplayer flightsimulator from Eyal Lebedinsky (eyal@eyal.emu.id.au ).

DOS (MsVC, Borland c, Quick C, DJGPP), Windows (3.1, 95, NT), Unix/X11-Windows (shm) and OS/2 DIVE.
SVGA and stereo shutter glasses support.
Landscape generation and collision detection.
Algorithmic sky painting.
Sound and joystick support.
2D vector text.
Networking support.

Screenshots and the source are available via the Homepage of Eyal.

23.07.1996 X3D 12.06.1995

X3D is an X11-Windows wireframe viewer from Mark Spychalla (spy@castlab.engr.wisc.edu).

Stereo rendering support.
Multiple line colors in non-stereo mode.
Hidden line / Hidden surface display modes.
Utiltiy to compute convex hull of polygons.

The source can be found on ftp.cae.wisc.edu.

21.03.1996 Sced 19.09.1995

Sced is a constraint based scene modeller using wireframe display from Stephen Chenney (stephen@cs.su.oz.au).

X11-Windows support.
Simple primitive objects can be created and there is full support for Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG), which allows for the definition of complex objects using set operations on simpler objects.
Objects can be positioned in the scene, scaled, rotated, copied, moved etc. Constraints are used to position and shape objects.
Sced produces output files for POVRay, Rayshade, Genray, Radiance, RenderMan or Genscan and also saves OFF files.
Support for camera, light and material properties.
C source.
Elk Scheme extension language support.

The source can be found on plaza.aarnet.edu.au or via the Sced Homepage.

12.06.1995 VOGLE 12.06.1995

VOGLE (very ordinary graphics learning environment) is a device portable graphics library that is loosely based on the Silicon Graphics Iris GL. VOGL was done by Eric H. Echidna (echidna@munnari.OZ.AU).

C source.
Drivers for postscript, sun workstation, apollo workstations, X11-Windows (R4 & R5), tektronix (401x), hpgl, dxy, and the ibm pc cards: hercules mono, cga, ega, vga and sigma, Windows and HP graphics terminals..
Bezier patches, polygons, arcs, lines and hershey font 2D text support.
Flat and wireframe rendering (no shading!)

The source can be found on munnari.oz.au .

12.06.1995 VOGL 12.06.1995

VOGL (very ordinary GL Like Library) is a device portable graphics library that tries to be Silicon Graphics Iris GL compatible. The intention is that any VOGL program will compile unchanged on a machine running SGI GL (the examples do). VOGL is based entirely on the other graphics library VOGLE. VOGL was done by Eric H. Echidna (echidna@munnari.OZ.AU).

C source.
Drivers for postcript, sun workstation, apollo workstations, X11-Windows (R2, R3 & R4), tektronix (401x), hpgl, dxy, and the ibm pc cards: hercules mono, cga, ega, vga and sigma.
Bezier patches, polygons, arcs, lines and hershey font 2D text support.
Flat and wireframe rendering (no shading!)

The source can be found on munnari.oz.au .

Landscape/Voxel Engines

02.03.2000 terraVox 11.05.1999

terraVox (former OpenVL) is an Landscape Engine for PCs (DOS, Linux and Windows) from Alex J. Champandard ( ajc116@demeter.cs.york.ac.uk ).

4 DOF height field rendering
Bilinear interpolation between voxels
2 alpha blended planes for the sky
Fog and quality reduction in the distance
Voxels with bilinear filtered textures
Span level bi-directionnal mipmapping
Support for huge heightmaps (powers of two)
Lightmap shading
Realtime variable level of detail rendering
Fully customisable rendering options
Ported to linux X11, VESA under dos, Direct Draw and OpenGL
C++ or Pascal and Assembler source code

More information, screenshots and the source can be found on the terraVox Homepage.

28.09.1998 Attack 13.08.1998

Attack is a simple 3D landscape game engine from ( TimD@buffbody.com ).

No shading yet.
Uses OpenGL for rendering.
Depth cueing.
Sky rendering
Collision detection with the ground.
Support for Windows, Linux and SunOs.
C++ source.

More information, screenshots and the source can be found on Attack Homepage.

18.01.1996 Flight through / around Clouds 04.01.1996

FTAC is a landscape engine from Kiselyov Oleg (oleg@pobox.com).

Mac and X11-Windows port using XVT/Motif GUI engine.
Conversion of IR satellite pictures of land/sea (partially) covered with clouds into heightfield.
Fractal generation of random heightfield.
C++ source.
Heightfield with interpolation.
Rotation and translation.
No sky texturemapping.

The source and more information can be found on the FTAC Homepage.

05.11.1995 Venus 05.11.1995

Venus is a voxel terrain engine by Vincent Lepetit (lepetit@scinfo.u-nancy.fr) using the older TAGL 2.1 library.

Interpolated voxel heightfield rendering.
Textured sky backdrop mapping.
Plasma terrain generation.
Animated water waves.
Y-Rotation and translation.
X11-Windows, dynamic window size.
C source.

The source can be found at ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de. More info in the Venus Readme.

Non-realtime Engines

15.04.1996 NuGraf Developer's 3D Toolkit 15.04.1996

The NG D3DT is a commercial 3D library from Okino Computer Graphics, Inc (sales@okino.com). NuGraf's renderer is designed to create fast, high quality photo-realistic images using software generation methods. NuGraf is a complete development system for creating 3D computer graphics applications, the toolkit handles all aspects of the 3D modeling and rendering process.

High-speed, 32-bit broadcast-quality scanline renderer based on a hybrid Z-scanline/A-buffer algorithm.
Support for third party renderers via a back-end custom rendering interface. NuGraf ships with a full featured OpenGL(tm) interface module.
Hierarchical database management and inquiry system.
650 pages of documentation.
Efficient interfaces provided to allow large quantities of polygonal data to be passed into the database, including a host-based callback mechanism (the "user-defined" primitive). A mathematically stable sub-library of polygon welding and smoothing operations optimize any raw data for rendering (ex: DXF).
Meshed polygon vertices can be assigned a color, normal, (u,v) texture coordinates, and U/V tangent information.
Complex n-sided polygons with recursive holes & islands.
Sphere, cone, and cylinder quadric primitives with implicit texture parameterizations. Box, prism, disc and rectangle primitives with implicit texture parameterizations.
NURB and bicubic patch primitives with selectable basis.
Scenes are created using object instancing and hierarchical attachment.
Omnidirectional, unidirectional or spot light sources with numerous options: intensity, color, decay,fall-off, softness, shadow parameters.
Implementation of PIXAR's soft shadow technique with tiling optimizations.
A wide selection of predefined surface shaders: 2D texture mapping, Perlin and Peachy 3D procedural texture functions, spherical/cubical environment and planar reflectance mapping, mist and fog full-featured atmospheric shaders, flat, gouraud or phong shading models, phong or blinn specular highlight.
State-of-the-art analytic 2D texture filtering algorithms.
Output drivers for images, X11-Windows, SGI, Windows and VGA.
The library is available on a wide range of platforms, including Apple Macintosh, IBM PC 32-bit DOS, Microsoft Windows v3.1 (32-bit), Microsoft Windows NT (32-bit DLL), Linux + X11, SUN workstations, Silicon Graphics workstations and DEC Alpha AXP (Windows NT).

More info on the NuGraf's Homepage.

3D Engines List X11

This list contains 61 X-Windows rendering engines.