| Industry group furthers embedded multimedia standards |
Aug. 02, 2005
The Khronos Group has released a specification for accelerated 2D vector graphics, updated its specification for embedded graphics hardware and software, initiated an embedded audio acceleration standard, and annexed a project developing a lossless data interchange format for 3D authoring software, it announced at SIGGRAPH this week in Los Angeles.
Khronos Group is an industry group comprised of some 86 companies, mainly chipmakers, graphics hardware and software vendors, and consumer electronics companies. It promotes royalty free multimedia standards aimed at making hardware and software more interoperable.
The Khronos Group's five major SIGGRAPH announcements include:- The release of OpenVG 1.0, an API for accelerated 2D vector graphics that was made available for comment last December
- The release of OpenGL ES 2.0, the "embedded subset" of OpenGL that was made available for comment this March
- The formation of a working group charged with creating OpenSL ES, an API for accelerated sound in embedded systems
- The integration of the Collada project, a group of digital content creation software vendors working on a lossless data interchange format for 3D graphics authoring applications
These projects are described further, below.
Additionally, the Khronos Group has announced that Sony and NVidia have become "promoting members" that will delegate representatives to sit on the Khronos Group board of directors.
OpenVG 1.0 (vector graphics)
OpenVG aims to enable high-quality, anti-aliased, scalable 2D vector graphics on embedded and handheld devices. Such graphics can provide readable text on small-screen displays, and can be used to create rich user interfaces for 2D games, GPS applications, and mapping software, the Khronos Group says.
OpenVG 1.0 enables the hardware acceleration of vector graphics libraries that include Mobile Flash and SVG, a five-year old standard maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium. OpenVG can accelerate both SVG Tiny and SVG Basic content, as well as Flash Mobile content.
According to Khronos, OpenVG 1.0 was designed to interoperate with the Khronos Group's OpenGL ES 3D graphics API. It will be updated annually, to track and enable evolving graphics capabilities in handheld and mobile devices.
The OpenVG 1.0 standard was developed by Khronos members that include 3Dlabs, ATI, Bitboys, BitFlash, DMP, Ericsson, Falanx, Hybrid Graphics, Ikivo, Imagination Technologies, Nokia, NVIDIA, Motorola, PalmSource, Symbian, and Sun Microsystems.
Bitboys CTO Petri Nordlund said, "Future mobile phone user interfaces will primarily use vector graphics. Bitboys has been providing mobile vector graphics hardware since 2002 -- the introduction of the OpenVG API allows us to provide a standard interface for all our graphics processors.
For more about the use of vector graphics in embedded devices and software user interfaces, be sure to read this whitepaper from Vibren, which licenses Flash in low- and mid-volumes, and offers Flash porting and testing services.
OpenGL ES 2.0 (graphics library embedded subset)
According to the Khronos Group, OpenGL ES is a royalty-free API based on a subset of the OpenGL graphics library. It aims to enable advanced graphics capabilities on embedded devices, and has seen widespread adoption by handset and mobile device vendors, the Group says.
Version 2.0 of OpenGL ES is a provisional release aimed at allowing silicon vendors to immediately start processor designs. It includes a version of the OpenGL Shading Language for programming vertex and fragment shaders that has been adapted for embedded platforms. It also includes a streamlined version of the OpenGL ES 1.1 API, edited to remove any fixed functionality that can be easily replaced by shader programs, the Group says.
OpenGL ES 2.0 will be fine-tuned over the next six months, "as the industry gains implementation experience of embedded programmable graphics," the Group says. After six months, software for testing conformance to the standard will be added to an OpenGL ES 2.0 Adopter's Package.
Pending OpenGL ES 2.0 maturation, the Khronos Group has extended OpenGL ES 1.1 and several associated specifications, it says, including OpenGL ES-SC (safety critical).
Khronos Group President Neil Trevett said, "The OpenGL ES Working Group is carefully balancing the introduction of leading-edge technology with the commercial needs of the industry. OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenGL ES 1.1 Extension Pack will enable silicon design pipelines to be kept full -- while not disrupting the market introduction of products using OpenGL ES 1.1 today."
OpenSL ES (sound library embedded subset)
Creative has led the creation of a Khronis working group that will create an application-oriented audio API tuned for embedded systems. The OpenSL API aims to standardize access to hardware acceleration features such as 3D positional audio and MIDI playback. It also aims to provide a cross-platform foundation for higher-level audio APIs, such as JSR-234.
Ultimately, the Khronos Group hopes its OpenSL ES will facilitate ports of games and audio applications across multiple platforms and devices. The API will have an abstraction level similar to OpenGL ES for 3D graphics, the Group says, while complementing the system-oriented audio component of OpenMAX IL, another Khronos Group API currently under development.
OpenSL ES has strong initial support from Beatnik, NVIDIA, QSound Labs, and Sonaptic, according to the Khronos Group. It will be developed under the Khronos participation framework, and interested companies are invited to join and participate.
Collada
The Collada ("COLLAborative Design Activity") project aims to create an open data interchange format to improve the interoperability of digital content creation software. The project was originally founded by Sony Computer Entertainment, as part of its effort to revolutionize personal computing with the Cell processor and Sony Playstation 3. It will now become part of the Khronos Group, SCEI has announced, where it will benefit from Khronos's open participation process and royalty-free IP (intellectual property) framework.
The Khronos Group says Collada has the potential to enable extremely powerful digital content creation tool chains that can "automatically condition and scale 3D geometry and texture assets for real-time playback on a wide diversity of platforms." It says the technology supports all features needed by modern 3D interactive authoring applications to losslessly exchange asset data. Planned features include support for packaging programmable shader effects, and controlling real-time physics engines.
Numerous companies have contributed to Collada so far, including 3Dlabs, Alias, Aegia, Autodesk, ATI, Havok, NVIDIA, and Softimage.
Additionally, SCEI has joined Khronos as a "promoting member," and will gain a seat on the Khronos board of directors, the Group has announced. SCEI CTO Masa Chatani said, "COLLADA has already made great progress with strong industry support -- and now the time has come to formalize our standardization process by joining Khronos to ensure that any company can participate in its development and to ensure the standard will always be freely available. SCEI remains fully committed to Collada: it forms a key part of the Playstation3 tools strategy. SCEI has become a Khronos Promoter so that we can fully support Collada, OpenGL ES, and other Khronos standards."
Trevett, who also chairs the OpenGL ES Working Group at Khronos, added, "The availability of the same API across platforms from cell phones to high-performance consoles, combined with state-of-the-art authoring tools, makes OpenGL ES an attractive target for ISV development."
For more details about these and (believe it or not) other Khronos announcements from SIGGRAPH, be sure to visit the Khronos Group website.
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