GLUT and OpenGL Utility Libraries

There are numerous Windowing system and interface libraries available for OpenGL as well as Scengraphs and High-level libraries build on top of OpenGL

• About GLUT
  • GLUT is the OpenGL Utility Toolkit, a window system independent toolkit for writing OpenGL programs. It implements a simple windowing application programming interface (API) for OpenGL. GLUT makes it considerably easier to learn about and explore OpenGL Programming.
• Other GLUT-like Window System Toolkits
  • Libraries that are modeled on the functionality of GLUT providing support for things like: windowing and events, user input, menuing, full screen rendering, performance timing
• About GLX, GLU & DRI
  • GLX is used on Unix OpenGL implementation to manage interaction with the X Window System and to encode OpenGL onto the X protocol stream for remote rendering. GLU is the OpenGL Utility Library. This is a set of functions to create texture mipmaps from a base image, map coordinates between screen and object space, and draw quadric surfaces and NURBS. DRI is the Direct Rendering Infrastructure for coordinating the Linux kernel, X window system, 3D graphics hardware and an OpenGL-based rendering engine.
• Higher Level Libraries built on OpenGL
  • Leading software developers use OpenGL, with its robust rendering libraries, as the 2D/3D graphics foundation for higher-level APIs. Developers leverage the capabilities of OpenGL to deliver highly differentiated, yet widely supported vertical market solutions. Open Inventor, IRIS Performer, OpenGL Optimizer, OpenGL Volumizer, OpenGL Shader, Scene Graph APIs.