New APIs for mobile graphics

Abstract

Progress in mobile graphics technology during the last five years has been swift, and it has followed a similar path as on PCs: early proprietary software engines running on integer hardware paved the way to standards that provide a roadmap for graphics hardware acceleration. In this overview we cover five recent standards for 3D and 2D vector graphics for mobile devices. OpenGL ES is a low-level API for 3D graphics, meant for applications written in C or C++. M3G (JSR 184) is a high-level 3D API for mobile Java that can be implemented on top of OpenGL ES. Collada is a content interchange format and API that allows combining digital content creation tools and exporting the results to different run-time systems, including OpenGL ES and M3G. Two new 2D vector graphics APIs reflect the relations of OpenGL ES and M3G: OpenVG is a low-level API for C/C++ that can be used as a building block for a high-level mobile Java API JSR 226.

An effective rasterization architecture for mobile vector graphics processors

“…Each term represents the number of memory write, sorting, and memory read operations. In equation (1), N stands for the number of edges, Cells of Edge i stands for the number of cells created by each edge, and K1 stands for the number of bytes to store one cell which includes each x-coordinate value and coverage data for anti-aliasing.…”

The State of the Art in Mobile Graphics Research

“…A description of these and other related APIs appears elsewhere. 2 By mobile, we mostly mean handheld devices. So, although aviation or car displays are certainly mo bile, they fall outside this article's scope.…”

Hardware implementation of a tessellation accelerator for the OpenVG standard

“…Due to this advance, the user's demands have been increased and many innovative applications have been developed [1]. For examples, GUI (Graphic User Interface), navigation systems, and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) player become widely used in various electrical appliances that need high quality graphic environment.…”