LOS ANGELES — According to Imagination Technologies, a supplier of mobile and embedded GPU (Graphics Processor Unit) technology, shipments of GPUs conformant with the Khronos OpenGL ES family of graphics APIs (Application Programming Interface) will reach 1 billion units per annum by 2014. Many of those platforms shipped in 2014 will be capable of delivering the latest capabilities of the new Khronos OpenGL ES 3.0 APIs, thanks to Imagination’s PowerVR Series6 GPU processors.
Research conducted by Imagination, whose PowerVR GPU technology is a proven technology for mobile and embedded graphics, suggests that SoCs (systems on chip) capable of supporting OpenGL ES 3.0, including products incorporating PowerVR Series6 GPUs, will begin to ship in products in mid-2013, and that tablets, smartphones and other products supporting OpenGL ES 3.0 will become a significant and growing part of a billion unit market by 2014. Imagination is providing OpenGL ES 3.0 capable PowerVR Series6 GPUs to nine of the world’s leading semiconductor and electronics companies.
Imagination’s PowerVR Series6 Rogue family of GPUs delivers the advanced capabilities of OpenGL ES 3.0 as well as OpenGL ES 2.0 and 1.1, and other key graphics APIs such as DirectX10 and 11. Imagination expects PowerVR will be the leading GPU driving OpenGL ES 3.0 adoption.
“The future of graphics is mobile,” says Tony King-Smith, VP of marketing at Imagination. “With such advanced features as multiple rendering targets, instancing, and more, Khronos’ OpenGL ES 3.0 is a significant step forward for mobile and embedded graphics, bringing mobile platforms another step closer to performance and feature set parity with traditionally more capable desktops and consoles. The widespread adoption by semiconductor manufacturers and developers has made our PowerVR family the GPU technology of choice for mobile application development. We are excited by this next phase of mobile GPU, which will blur the boundaries between mobile and traditional high end graphics platforms.”
At SIGGRAPH this week, Imagination will show the capabilities of the new OpenGL ES 3.0 API with new demos for PowerVR Series6 including:
- Leaves, featuring OpenGL ES 3.0 Transform Feedback. A storm of leaves swirls across the screen as transform feedback is used for position and orientation of each leaf and then instancing, another key OpenGL ES 3.0 feature, is used to draw the high complexity leaves with close to 300 polygons each.
- Metropolis, featuring OpenGL ES 3.0 Instanced Geometry. A high-rise futuristic urban scene is rendered using hundreds of OpenGL ES 3.0 Instanced buildings and flying cars. Multiple Render Targets (MRT) are used to add atmospheric bloom effects adding to the cinematic feeling of the scene. High quality anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering ensure top of the line image quality.
- Shrine, featuring OpenGL ES 3.0 Multiple Render Target. An eerie night-time scene shows the benefits of Light Indexed Deferred Lighting using OpenGL ES 3.0 Multiple Render Targets. This advanced approach to scene lighting enables up to 4 light sources per pixel selected from up to 1024 lights per scene and can be efficiently combined with advanced hardware based anti-aliasing effects.