Low-Level

An essential goal of OpenGL is to provide device independence while still allowing complete access to hardware functionality. The API therefore provides access to graphics operations at the lowest possible level that still provides device independence. As a result, OpenGL does not provide a means for describing or modeling complex geometric objects. Another way to describe this situation is to say that OpenGL provides mechanisms to describe how complex geometric objects are to be rendered rather than mechanisms to describe the complex object themselves.

• The OpenGL Utility Library