QuickDraw 3D's Command Structure

Like OpenGL, QuickDraw 3D (QD3D) is a platform-independent graphics API, implemented as shared libraries on the Mac OS and as DLLs on Windows. Similar to OpenGL's platform-specific GLX library, QD3D has approximately 10 system-dependent calls that initialize the graphics environment, create a window, and obtain a pointer to the window's frame buffer. In all, QD3D has approximately 1050 calls, but remember that this API manages not only rendering and display, but applications support and file I/O.

The QD3D API offers a number of drawing primitives, called geometries in Apple parlance. (A geometry includes the graphics command and its data. That is, a triangle geometry also stores its vertices' coor dinates. Geometries are similar to OpenGL's display lists, except that they provide additional support for editing and file I/O.) The initial release supported primitives such as a line, polyline, triangle, point, simple polygon, mesh (polygons that share common vertice s), box, marker, and nonuniform rational B-splines (NURBS) curve, to name a few. Release 1.1 supports more complex objects, such as cylinders, cones, tori, ellipsoids, triangle meshes, and NURBS patches with view-dependent tessellation.

---

QuickDraw 3D Contact Information

There are no licensing fees for QD3D. Developers should obtain a QD3D license from sw.license@applelink.apple.com.

---

QuickDraw 3D Supports the Mac and Windows

illustration_link (15 Kbytes)