Editing OpenGL Utility Library

{{distinguish|OpenGL Utility Toolkit}}
{{no footnotes|date=February 2013}}
The '''OpenGL Utility Library''' ('''GLU''') is a computer [[graphics library]] for [[OpenGL]].

It consists of a number of functions that use the base OpenGL library to provide higher-level drawing routines from the more primitive routines that OpenGL provides.  It is usually distributed with the base OpenGL package.  GLU is not implemented in the embedded version of the OpenGL package, [[OpenGL ES]].

Among these features are mapping between screen- and world-coordinates, generation of [[Texture mapping|texture]] [[mipmap]]s, drawing of [[quadric]] surfaces, [[Nonuniform rational B-spline|NURBS]], [[tessellation]] of polygonal primitives, interpretation of OpenGL error codes, an extended range of transformation routines for setting up viewing volumes and simple positioning of the camera, generally in more human-friendly terms than the routines presented by OpenGL.  It also provides additional primitives for use in OpenGL applications, including [[sphere]]s, [[cylinder (geometry)|cylinder]]s and [[Disk (mathematics)|disks]].

All GLU functions start with the <code>glu</code> prefix. An example function is <code>gluOrtho2D</code> which defines a two dimensional [[orthographic projection]] matrix.

The GLU specification was last updated in 1998, and it depends on features which were [[deprecation|deprecated]] with the release of OpenGL 3.1 in 2009.<ref name="OpenGLRegistryRoot">{{cite web|url=http://www.opengl.org/registry/ |title=The OpenGL Registry |publisher=Opengl.org |date= |accessdate=May 2, 2013}}</ref> Specifications for GLU are still available [https://www.opengl.org/registry/doc/glu1.3.pdf here]

== See also ==
*[[FreeGLUT]]
*[[OpenGL User Interface Library]] (GLUI)
*[[OpenGL Utility Toolkit]] (GLUT)

==References==
<references />

[[Category:OpenGL]]