A new 3D graphics library: Concepts, implementation, and examples

3D graphics libraries play an important role in aiding both scientists and engineers to visualize their data and results. Existing graphics libraries provide a wide range of applications. However, they lack a common interface and more flexibility in the details. This article presents a new 3D graphics library, which combines both the speed of hardware driven rendering and the image quality of professional commercial products. This improvement mas achieved by a flexible and extendible concept which integrates the use of different renderer algorithms, user-definable shading algorithms, and adaptations to many different hardware platforms. Based on a catalog of requirements, a modular object-oriented design for a new 3D graphics library has been developed. Some aspects of the resulting implementation are discussed in detail. Several examples of applications built with the help of the new library conclude this article.