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GLBOld 3D Tech That Just Won't Go Away
1Article by Yuri Ilyin
Many modern 3D suites emerged back in the 1980s and 1990s, some of them before general PCs were even capable of handling 3D data. However different that software is now, some legacy tech still lingers and won't go away.
It's common knowledge that many of the industry-standard software tools go back a long way. The earliest versions of some packages emerged on platforms that no longer exist at all, and long before common PCs were even considered as working tools for 3D graphics.
Surprisingly, there is quite an amount of legacy tech that just wouldn't go and is still in use.
We have picked a few.
XFS file system
Whereas it is not software for making computer graphics, there is still a strong relationship: this system was created by Silicon Graphics, Inc. in 1993 for their proprietary IRIX operating system, which, in turn, was a derivative of UNIX System V, with BSD extensions.
SGI created IRIX specifically for use on its own MIPS-based workstations and servers, which received extensive use in the CG industry at the time.
IRIX effectively ceased to exist in 2006, although its core technology has been open sourced and ported to Linux. XFS was among those components, and today every Linux distribution supports it, while Red Hat Enterprise ships it as the default file system.
Thanks to its design, XFS - a 64-bit system from day one - delivers very fast parallel input/output and enables, according to Wikipedia, "extreme scalability of I/O threads, file system bandwidth, and size of files and of the file system itself when spanning multiple physical storage devices," while ensuring the consistency of data via metadata journaling.
And yes, high-performance systems, including those used in render farms, generally utilize Linux as their OS.
OpenGL
This cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics was developed by none other than Silicon Graphics, Inc. The first release happened on June 30, 1992.
SGI didnt open this API out of sheer generosity. In fact, it was initially a proprietary product called IRIS GL API. By the early 1990s, it was already an industry standard.
However, while SGI was also a leader in 3D graphics for workstations, its competitors - Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM - started producing their own 3D hardware, supported by extensions made to another then-standard API - PHIGS.
This prompted SGI to open-source their API, and it took over rather quickly, making PHIGS obsolete. The latter was last updated back in 1997.
Since then, OpenGL has become triumphant. In gaming too: id Software, for example, utilized it for their GLQuake, the first 3D-accelerated version of the classic shooter released early in 1997. That was a bold move, as there was just one consumer-level video card available that could run the game well - 3dfx Voodoo Graphics. GLQuake came with a specific driver enabling the subset of OpenGL to function on this card.
Reference: GLQuake (screenshot)
OpenGL is still in active use, although not in active development, the latter ceased in favor of the Vulkan API. For this reason, certain capabilities offered by modern GPUs, like real-time ray tracing, are not supported by the standard OpenGL. However, various vendors add their own OpenGL extensions, so it's too early to bury the old standard.
Wavefront Object, aka .OBJ
Now, this is something old yet stalwart, a format for storing 3D data with a rich history.
The format for storing geometry definition was first developed by Wavefront Technologies, one of the pioneering entities in the field. Founded in 1984, the company produced computer graphics for movies and commercials, as well as marketed their own software, first of all - The Advanced Visualizer.
The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Jurassic Park are among the high-budget, Oscar-winning movies that featured computer-generated effects produced with TAV.
It was not a monolithic product, but rather a constellation of independent programs that each focused on one aspect of image synthesis. To facilitate data exchange between them, the .OBJ format was created.
Among its primary advantages is simplicity: that's why it is not a problem for nearly any 3D suite to import and export its data, and why it has persisted for decades after its creation.
Wavefront as a company no longer exists: SGI bought it out in 1995 and merged it with Alias Research. The new entity - Alias|Wavefront - produced what became known as Maya, which emerged from the cauldron where tested technologies from both Alias and Wavefront were combined and expanded.
Autodesk eventually acquired Maya in 2005, making it one of its flagship products.
The .OBJ format is still widely used today.
STL format
Another veteran file format, in existence since 1987 and still widely used, it is the standard for stereolithography, i.e., 3D printing.
Originally developed for CAD software by 3D Systems in 1987, it continues to be supported by multiple 3D suites in both the engineering (CAD/CAM) and entertainment industries.
Just like .OBJ, it is a simple data format that describes only the surface geometry of a three-dimensional object, without size, color, or other attributes.
It is still used today as a general standard format for importing triangulated geometry into computer-aided manufacturing systems.
New formats exist as well; one example is AMF (Additive Manufacturing File Format), which unlike STL has native support for color, materials, lattices, and constellations. However, it was initially called "STL 2.0."
It is unlikely that STL will be retired anytime soon.
It may be surprising that some old tech lingers this long, but some things just work. UNIX-based operating systems, for example, date back to 1969 and are still in use not just as leftovers. macOS and iOS are direct descendants of UNIX, while Linux, FreeBSD, and others are members of a vast family of UNIX-like systems, following this glorious legacy. Perhaps when much-coveted quantum computing arrives, these technologies will finally be retired - but not before then.
